


If I Just Ignored This

by AnHeiressofaSOLDIER



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 70,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4416209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnHeiressofaSOLDIER/pseuds/AnHeiressofaSOLDIER
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Homura wakes up in another timeline and once again begins her fight to save Madoka. However, things aren't exactly as they seem. And as Homura decides to do things differently this time than she ever has before, even more unexpected things end up occurring. Something... is not right: The Witches are different and more powerful than ever. Will she finally succeed in saving Madoka?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cringing, for Many Reasons

**Homura's PoV**

Homura woke from her current dream with the desire to scream and cry: something that surprised her; she'd thought she'd long ago put a lid on her emotions. And that was one of the many "gifts" of being a Puella Magi, wasn't it?

It was also a trait that Miki Sayaka always ended up abusing in the timelines that she Contracted: something that always lead to the inevitable down spiral of everyone else.

Deciding then and there that she apparently wasn't going to get any sleep this night-as thoughts of the bluenette had never left Homura feeling in a good way-the time traveler got up out of her bed, and she scowled.

Why was it her room was always the same color it had been when she'd first begun learning to make bombs? Many other things randomly changed during her jumps, Homura reflected, so why not a better paint change?

Aaaaaaand these were not thoughts she needed to be having right now. What she should have been doing was going to get a glass of orange juice, and so Homura did.

As always, her actions were methodical and practiced; she had done all of this too many times. But even so... a simple glass of OJ, as base as it was, was one of the simple pleasures that she still had in this life.

As her violet eyes flickered down to her glass and the liquid located there, Homura prayed a silent thank you-to the God that she only barely believed in anymore-that this beverage could still make her feel more than healthy enough to fight Witches...

Even if she did wish the color of it was more similar to a certain pink she'd come to love, as well as some tastes of strawberry from desserts long ago.

"Well," Homura muttered-and whether or not she was talking to one of her old imaginary friends, an imagined Kyuubey or something else, she didn't know. "What should I do tomorrow, then? I was undoubtedly a fool for waiting an extra day to transfer into Madoka's school this time.

"But I... I've come to believe in karma and bad luck much more than I used to. And who knows? Perhaps my tradition of taking my hair down, as well as fixing my eyes, before I go and see her has jinxed things. It's a ridiculous thing to believe in, yes, but at this point I'll try anything.

"Tomorrow will be the first day I've met Madoka in a number of loops, that didn't start right after I made myself 'cooler' like she told me to so long ago."

Of course, Homura didn't get any answers to her ponderings at all, but that was something she'd grown used to after Tomoe-san-

No. She would  _not_  think about that.

Swallowing very loudly-though the massive amount of orange juice she'd just downed had nothing at all to do with it-Homura began purposefully focusing on something even more dangerous than her traumatic memories: her good ones.

This one in particular had been when Madoka had come over to her, so trusting, after Miki Sayaka had turned into a Witch.

Not that Madoka had known that, though (which was  _why_  she'd believed in Homura so much in that instance).

Back then, Homura had skillfully lied that that Witch  _wasn't_ Miki Sayaka, but rather one that had appeared and eaten her Soul Gem, for which Sakura Kyoko and Tomoe Mami had needed to avenge her.

So thinking just on that, and how she'd almost succeeded in her quest that time, Homura left the room but only to prepare some more charts about Walpurgisnacht.

...

It was amazing what so much of repeating a month could do to a person.

Once upon a time, Homura had very much enjoyed her walk to school, for she had many a time gotten to converse with Madoka, Miki Sayaka, and Shizuki Hitomi as they made their way to the building.

Now, however, Homura hated walking to the place with a passion. It wasn't the repetitive part she was worried about, either: there were much worse things.

Everything in this area was just far too picturesque right now; it was crisp, it was clean, and it didn't at all speak of the horrors that existed in Mitakihara even now.

So in that way, the Magical Girl thought the lies of the town's exterior weren't that far removed from that of the Incubator's.

And no doubt if places could talk, they would be against her plight, too, Homura thought bitterly. All too soon Walpurgisnacht was going to level this place...

Homura also hated how much green there was around her-a version very close to Shizuki Hitomi's own features.

And since it all was always because of  _Hitomi_ , that things always got worse for Sayaka and she would eventually fell into despair, Homura had come to despise the girl.

She'd never been big on Miki Sayaka, either, but they had had their moments in the past.

And if nothing else, the healer pulled her weight much more than her companion ever had, Homura thought, shortly.

For that, if nothing else, Homura knew she could at the very least still  _respect_ Sayaka: she had also saved her precious Madoka more than once, too...

"Oh, umm... are you the new transfer student, by chance?" said a sudden and intrusive voice beside Homura, that really should not have been able to be there at all.

She pivoted in alarm, and prepared to transform and top time on this intruder if she needed to. She wasn't opposed to using one of her guns on him, either (and actually, it probably  _would_  be best to just use a firearm instead of using magic she'd later need a Grief Seed for).

Thankfully, Homura quickly got to her senses and remembered this encounter had happened before a couple of times.

Apparently Nakazawa-kun was just being overly curious, Homura allowed. So no need to go trigger happy on him yet, then, as she'd had to in some few, strange instances.

Homura breathed a sigh of relief and rewarded him a small smile.

As much as she hated to admit it, Homura did enjoy the kindness he was now showing her-something that reminded her much of the  _old_  Madoka, and just why it was she was still willingly suffering for her-as she'd made sure to alienate herself from the other girls for a long time now.

Also... the boy was quite cute, when he stuttered during Saotome Sensei's crazy spiels, Homura remembered.

And now... now she almost felt like she had when she'd gone to Catholic school, and had dreamed about boys there. Almost.

"Yes. I am she," Homura answered the boy, bowing slightly, as she internally hoped that maybe this time Miki Sayaka would fall for this kinder boy and not Kamijo Kyousuke.

But... maybe Kamijo-kun hadn't always been so selfish, Homura thought. After all, the people seemed to get...  _harsher_  with each new universe she traveled to, so maybe that was the answer.

But... it was pointless thinking on such things now. All Homura could hope to do now was move forward, save Madoka, and pray that her actions didn't cause any more collateral damage this time.

It would be just her luck for this boy to suddenly turn against her next time, after all.

"I... I apologize for not showing up yesterday, like I was supposed to," Homura found herself saying-fiddling with her headband in a way she hadn't done since she'd still worn glass. "But you see... Not to insult Sensei, but I heard that she has a tendency to go off on tangents, and I have a bit of anxiety. I feared meeting her, you see, and so I put off my arrival until today, so..."

 _I'm sorry that I didn't come yesterday, so as to interrupt her unnecessary scrutiny on you_ , was what Homura really meant, though she dare not say it.

But even so, she must have done something right, for blushing outright at her words-and beginning to stammer again-the boy explained how if that were the case, he'd be more than willing to escort Homura into the classroom, so that she wouldn't have to make her appearance alone.

And nodding at him slightly, and even going as far as to slip her hair, the brunette decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

She was _tired_ of the same old scene every timeline, and maybe... Maybe this small, insignificant change would set off a chain of events that would lead to her finally saving Madoka?

It was certainly too much to ask for, but Homura  _was_  still a Magical Girl, and in that... despite everything, she still had hope.

And the rain at her feet would  _never_  again hint that she'd be kneeling down beside Madoka on an even  _worse_  day. She swore it.

...

"Class, this here is our new transfer student, Akemi Homura. She's been sick and in the hospital for some time now, so she might-"

The rest of her Sensei's words-that Homura had long ago memorized-were instantly cut off, when Nakazawa-kun tripped into the classroom behind her.

She cringed. Though Homura didn't have  _much_  regard for the side character in her own personal story, she did remember how she'd hated her old klutzy self.

She remembered well, too, the look that Miki Sayaka had worn when Kyousuke had once tripped over his crutches in the doorway.

Without a second thought, Homura reached down to help the boy up, and then they both scurried to their seats:

Homura, because she hated the attention, the entire scene, and wanted things to get a move on…

And Nakazawa because he'd been late to class, and didn't want to draw too much attention to himself.

Out of the corner of her eye, Homura thought she saw Madoka look over at her approvingly-probably for having helped out a former classmate (at which case, Homura sighed; wondering who the far-too-selfless-girl would end up sacrificing herself for  _this_  time; hopefully it wouldn't be her again)-but then she looked troubled, as if she was worried that her position of Nurse's Aid was going to be usurped, or something.

Outwardly, Homura made sure to show no signs of distress at all.

But inwardly, she screamed aloud-wondering if Madoka would  _ever_ see her as anything but an enemy ever again.

Without a doubt, Homura knew she'd be needing a Grief Seed when all was said and done for the day...

...

Around break time, Homura sat pondering in her seat, as she wondered if Madoka-for whatever reason-would come and take her to the nurse's office.

If she wanted to, Homura knew she could ask the rose-haired girl for help herself.

But... as it happened, Homura found that she wasn't ready to introduce herself to Madoka just yet. At least not in that way; she wanted to try things differently this time.

And so, Homura sat in silence-eating a sandwich she had made, but making sure to use the bag it had come in as her napkin and plate; she wanted to make people think she was a slob so that they'd leave her alone.

It was... rather sad eating like this, Homura found. Something that she was used to by now, of course, but she couldn't stop thinking about how the old Madoka would have come up to befriend her by now...

Not this one, though. Was it that her own wish really  _had_  made Madoka more passive, Homura feared?

If so, she really didn't know how to feel about that, and so Homura decided that she would distract herself and go flirt with Nakazawa or something.

After all, if she was really so gung-ho about doing things completely different this time, why not go all out?

That was her plan, anyway. But as it so often happened, Akemi Homura's best-laid plans always ended up crashing and burning at the hands of Kaname Madoka.

As she'd begun heading over to one of the only boys in the class she really remembered, Homura ended up crashing into Madoka-who had apparently been heading somewhere with her crayon case in hand.

Homura cursed under her breath. It would just be her luck-after all the changes and fuck ups she'd had in this timeline all ready-to end up killing Madoka  _herself_ , by accidentally knocking her out a window or something.

And if Madoka's yelp of pain was anything to go by-and the way that the crayons fell onto the floor and splintered upon impact-then she must have hit her much harder than anticipated.

Not for the first time, Homura rued the day that Kyuubey had ever changed her body into this new and more durable one. "I am... so  _sorry_ , Madoka. Here. Let me help you up."

And it wasn't until Homura was ushering the other girl to get to her feet-similarly to how she had helped Nakazawa earlier in the day-that Homura realized she'd made her first mistake of the loop.

One she made too often, as her mind became too easily jumbled and then combined each different attempt with another: she'd used Madoka's name when she wasn't supposed to know it yet.

And even more than that, she had said her first name with familiarity: something that Madoka's wide, pink eyes seemed nervous about, though she was quick to downplay it.

"Oh, no. It's fine, Homura-chan... err, is it all right if I call you that? That is your name, right? Anyway, it was my fault for not watching where I was going, and for carrying arts and crafts around during lunchtime. Ehehe."

Maybe someday she would understand the strange look that Madoka sometimes got when looking at her for the first time, Homura thought confusedly. Maybe.

And though there was many things she wanted to dwell on and demand answers about (like how Madoka had called her "Homura-chan" immediately, almost without a question, which was unprecedented), Homura knew she had to focus on more crucial things.

 _Like,_  how Madoka's desk seemed to have a cubbyhole in it-and a crayon box, apparently-when no one else's did.

This had happened in a few other timelines, oddly enough, and it was always a result of someone's wish; Homura could only beg that it wasn't Madoka's own-or even Miki Sayaka's, for that matter.

But as neither of the two girls seemed to be wearing a Soul Gem on their fingers, the time traveler breathed a sigh of relief and thought that maybe she had some more time.

Still... Homura didn't doubt that  _someone_  new must have made a wish for Madoka's desk transformation to happen, and if that was the case (and such it was a willy-nilly wish at that), that could only mean that Tomoe Mami was putting on a show again, which...

Well, to put it mildly, Homura decided then and there that she would have to get on the Senpai's good side again and monitor her some.

And to be quite honest, Homura really didn't like the fact that Madoka seemed to be drawing.

If it was  _just_ about drawing, then Homura would have supported that decision to the high heavens (she wanted the other girl to have a normal life with normal aspirations, of course), but...

As far as Homura knew, Madoka only ever got artistic when she was seriously thinking about Contracting, and that wasn't at all good.

"Do you mind... do you mind  _Kaname-san_ ," Homura corrected her earlier mistake, though she planned to call Madoka just that as soon as she could get away with it again. "...Could I maybe see what you're drawing?

"I don't mean to pry!" Homura insisted, throwing her hands up into the air defensively, when she noticed the panic in Madoka's eyes. "But a certain friend of yours, that I believe you know,  _Yuma_ ," and Homura could only hope that if Madoka hadn't met Yuma yet, that hearing the name would trigger thoughts of her from the other attempts, to help aid her made-up-story, "told me that you were a really good artist, and I- I'm just a bit curious, is all. I want to be an artist myself, but I'm not very good. I've been trying to view more talented people's work, to learn from them, so-"

"Oh, of course, Homura-chan!" Madoka announced cheerily, thankfully interrupting what had become awkward word vomit for Homura

...But it was a bad moment, too, for Homura had been half-expecting-hoping-that Madoka would reach out and grab her hands again, just like she had in the past, and now Homura was feeling closer to despair for it.

"So Yuma's talked about me before, huh? That explains a lot! I'm afraid I'm really not as good as she makes me out to be, though. I'm not very exceptional at a lot of things, to be honest," Madoka admitted shyly, as she scratched the back of her neck and closed her eyes in resignation. "But I still like art, and love to talk to people about it! So here: just take my sketchbook, if you want. But... just make sure to get it back to me quick, and to not tear it up, or I'm afraid Yuma will use some weird magic trick of hers-that I don't know how she does-to get the book away from you and into her own hands.

"I, uh- What? Magic? You mean, that Yuma has-"

Finally, Sayaka ended up making her own presence known on the scene, much to the conflicted Homura's unease.

Ugh. She'd had to deal with Sayaka (and Mami) getting jealous of her and Madoka's friendship in the past, and if she had to go through that again now-and have it be another thing that would lead to Sayaka's eventual downfall-she would shoot herself.

Didn't she see that she was now trying to save the young Yuma's (and Madoka, always Madoka's) life?!

And... what was Shizuki Hitomi doing with the boy that Homura had meant to flirt with just a moment prior?

"Yo, Madoka," Sayaka questioned with her hands laced together behind her head, whilst she plastered on an obviously fake smile onto her face and took in the fallen Crayola. "What are you and Transfer Student doing with crayons? Don'cha know it's lunchtime? I mean, after this, I wouldn't even be surprised if Sensei got into a whole spiel about how the smell of crayons makes for a bad lunch scene, am I right? Ahahaha!"

 _What are you doing, Miki Sayaka? And why are you already compensating for some sort of heartache?_  Homura wanted to ask, but found that she couldn't-for it was that exact moment that the teacher called the class to order, to continue their studies.

Sayaka made an unpleased grunt at the woman's interruption; and as such, Homura wasn't even the least bit surprised when stony, cold eyes fell onto her.

Swallowing, the purple Magi wondered if perhaps Miki Sayaka was remembering the many times she'd had to best her in her Witch form. And for that reason alone, Homura was more than glad for the distraction the lesson provided.

...

The rest of the day passed much the same as it always did for Homura.

In math, she swiftly aced the difficult problem that had practically become child's play to her; in fact, it was the only thing from some of the other timelines that she was keeping in effect in this one.

And after that, before she knew it, Homura once again found herself in P.E class.

And with each new attempt, she found herself equally dreading and anticipating the chance it gave her.

On the  _one_  hand, Homura knew what this particular block had originally caused: her walking right into a Witch's Labyrinth for having been kissed by it.

But she also recognized that Madoka had once graced her with her sweetness here.

On that fateful day-that had led to the chance of everything-pink had tried to cheer up a depressed violet by transferring some of her coral colored magic to her.

That had been... the first time that Homura had even remotely understood what it was to be a Magical Girl-though then it had all been a beautiful dream back then-and it was the main reason why she'd been so greatly considering Madoka's advice, about Contracting herself, after they had gone over to Tomoe Mami's apartment that evening.

Yes... to say that Homura's feelings about all things gym related were a bit... conflicted would have been an understatement.

And so it was, for that reason, Homura opted to try and break the norm once again: to change what usually happened this day, and perhaps acquire something good from it instead.

So, going along with that idea, the brunette went ahead and truly showed off for the first time that day-doing the sort of gymnastics that were better fit for Sakura Kyoko, when flames licked up her legs as she did cartwheels for her Transformation-and successfully got the Sensei to forget all about pole vaulting, as they all took in the "physically fit" Homura's tumbling.

In another life, Homura might have been embarrassed by all the attention she was getting-the fact that even  _Madoka_  was watching her would have no doubt led to a panic attack on her part originally-but now it didn't even faze her.

Rather, Homura saw it as one of her many duties, just like fighting Witches was.

But even so... Homura did still greatly appreciate when the bell rang, signaling the end of that particular class.

As it happened, she'd sidetracked the teacher's plans-and had now been lost in her own memories enough-and...

She very well could have done without the shocked and outraged look that a certain Shizuki Hitomi was giving her.

...

"Hey, umm... Homura-chan? I know this is really late-and you've all ready made your way today, by following our classmates to the appropriate places-but... Would you maybe like a tour of our entire school now?"

Homura very nearly smacked her head on the underside of her desk-she'd earlier leaned beneath it to retrieve her school bag-at this question from Madoka.

"I appreciate the offer, Madoka," Homura answered the other girl nicely, as she got up from under the desk. "But..."  _But I must refrain from getting close to you again, lest you ever make a Contract for my sake_. "I know my way around the school very well at this point. And as you're all ready calling me 'Homura-chan', there's no need for us to have our usual conversation in that hallway... Even if a part of me wants to, to see if you'll once again mention how the meaning of my name is 'cool'."

It was only after Homura was combing a hand through her long locks-a habit she could never seem to conquer, as years of wearing her hair in braids had kept it out of her way, and not at all like it was now-that she realized she'd once again made a crucial mistake.

She'd said  _far_  too much, hadn't she? And now Madoka was looking at her like a fish out of water, no doubt wondering if she should go enlist her blue friend for help.

"I mean..." Homura tried desperately to amend (though deep down she wondered why she was even bothering, since pushing Madoka away was the best thing to do for her safety). "I'm staying behind today in order to go to the drama club after school. A little bird told me this year's school play might use similar lines to the ones I just uttered, so I've decided to practice here while doing my clean up duty. Thank you anyway, though, Madoka."

It was clear by the shorter girl's shocked face and slight quivering that she was still troubled.

But, Madoka being Madoka, quickly decided to spin things into a positive light-or so Homura guessed, anyway-and she quickly grabbed onto Homura's hands, startling a gasp out of the other girl, before she answered, "Oh, then that's perfectly okay, Homura-chan! I can just show you around before school tomorrow, maybe. I'm the Nurse's Aid for our classroom, and I know a lot of people seem to feel sort of sick in the morning. Maybe from staying up too late and getting up too early? I'm not sure exactly. So... if you happen to be one of those unfortunate souls with anxiety, then I can show you around and take you to the nurse's office right when you need me to!"

 _What a- what a completely bizarre thing to say_ , Homura thought, mystified-almost wanting to pull her hands away from Madoka's own, but stopping herself.

The pinkette's words... had almost been unintentionally cruel, and not very Madoka-like at all.

But then again... the two of them always  _did_  have their first conversation and tour under the guise of having to go to the nurse, didn't they?

Homura had messed that up this time around, so maybe the fates were trying to get that meeting to happen again?

And when had- when had Madoka learned she had anxiety, Homura tried to understand?!

Had she simply guessed at it, heard it from Nakazawa-kun, or was she just using it as an example?

"I-" Homura choked out uncertainly, having no idea what to say for the life of her.

"Oh, Akemi-san?" came a sweet, well-cultured-yet grating to Homura-voice, startling both girls away from each other, as Shizuki Hitomi made her way over to Homura, with a charitable set to her face; Homura frowned.

Just a moment ago she had seemed jealous of her gymnastic prowess, and even threatened by it. But now had she decided it would be best to have her as an ally? If so, Homura was more than glad she'd long ago left the woes of school mostly behind her.

"I don't mean to interrupt you and Madoka-san, Akemi-san, but if you're on clean up duty, I thought I might help you out. Unfortunately, Sensei seems to keep us all here a long time when we're helping her out. I'm afraid she can even be... a bit anal about it, as Sayaka-san would say.

"So... if you happen to have any extra food on you, I'd suggest eating it here and now. You might not get to dinner for some time, and Sensei does allow us to eat while we work. I've also noticed that one of our Senpais, a Tomoe Mami, will sometimes come down and help us clean, if she gets a whiff of tea and cake and isn't cleaning up in her own classroom.

"So... take advantage of all of this, I say, and maybe even start your homework now, before Sensei gets back into the room. Otherwise you might never get a head start on it."

Okay, so maybe she had misjudged this girl some, Homura thought wearily. She  _had_  just given her some pretty sound advice.

And even with as much as she'd repeated this month over and over, it was actually information that Homura hadn't had prior. Mainly because she'd never stayed for cleanup duty that much: for her health at first, and then because she'd had her Magical Girl duties later on.

But this... this information was golden. And though Homura really could have cared less about tidying up a classroom that would just get destroyed when Walpurgisnacht came anyway, she  _was_  interested in meeting Tomoe Mami in a more... peaceful venue.

It was, however, questionable that the golden girl-who had always insisted she was lonely, and didn't have time for clubs and the sort-was doing this in this timeline, but Tomoe Mami was very much an anomaly that Homura had given up figuring out long ago.

"That is some great advice Shizuki Hitomi, and I thank you much for it," Homura said, bowing to the girl.

And then, turning around to face Madoka, Homura felt the familiar irregular heartbeat in her chest as she confirmed, "I'll see you tomorrow then, Madoka."

Hitomi walked off nice and easy then, pausing only for a moment to politely bow back herself. And Madoka... looked posed to go after her (good; was she not going with Miki Sayaka to the music store, where the Incubator was no doubt waiting?), and gave one last searching look in Homura's direction before she, too, disappeared.

Meanwhile, Homura started doing exactly what Hitomi had told her to, minus the homework thing that she didn't care about.

She pulled a small raspberry cake (though candy would have been a closer term for it) out of her pocket-willing to forget that it was always her _mother_  who gave her the snack to take before school, and she waited for Mami's senses for all things British to kick in.

Finally, Tomoe Mami made her appearance-dusting her all ready dirty hands on her hips, even, ready to help.

However, it wasn't exactly the picture Homura had expected. She had seen some unexplainable things in her travels before, but this one certainly took the cake.

"Y- you're black!" Homura spluttered, before she could find it within herself to stop or rethink her plan of attack at all.

At that one-though horrible, yes-remark, everyone that was in the classroom quieted down, stopped what they were doing, and picked up the few, stray chalk erasers that had been dropped to the floor.

Wait... chalk erasers? Homura thought warily. Since when had any of the schools in Mitakihara used anything other than electronic blackboards?

And as her colleagues continued to look at her scandalized, Homura had a moment where she feared that maybe Madoka hadn't left after all, but was instead waiting outside and would... And would also now judge and hate her for what she'd just said.

But in her defense, there was something very wrong and peculiar about Tomoe Mami here! If she really  _had_ become African due to some awful timeline anomalies, then Homura knew for sure she would have been looking at her angrily for her earlier comment right now.

And in seeing how she seemed to be looking more concerned than anything else, Homura wagered that she was using magic to supplement this new look of hers, or... Or Homura allowed that maybe all of this time looping had finally succeeded in making her insane, and that there was nothing different about Mami at all.

Homura's eyes narrowed furiously at that particular idea, but she tried to reign herself in before her "mad" truly turned to "madness".

As it stood, Homura had  _no_  idea what this contrived timeline had in store for her-even moreso in that Yuma had seemingly made a Contract for the first time in a number of loops-and so she decided she needed Tomoe Mami and Sakura Kyoko on her side to help her against anything again.

Walpurgisnacht was now due in twenty-nine days time, and Homura promised herself that she would be  _ready_ for it.

"Ahh, you must forgive me, Tomoe-san," Homura said delicately, and with as much faux-sugariness in her voice, as she bowed to someone what felt like the umpteenth time that day. "I had just spoken to Kaname Madoka about you, and from our discussion, I'd thought she related that you have pale features. But once again, the fault is mine, and I offer you my apology."

Well, that seemed to get everyone, including Saotome Sensei, in her good graces again, Homura saw.

And she supposed that a part of her was angry, for once again having become something they could get amusement from, when she alone had fought to save them from Walpurgisnacht  _numerous_ times.

But years of having schooled her emotions just left her feeling more numb than anything. Even  _if_  the ring that currently housed her Soul Gem was starting to feel like an impossible weight that she couldn't possibly carry on her own.

Homura had done all of this cleaning to breech the subject with Magical Girls to Mami, to ask for an alliance, and to even ponder about Yuma and maybe even Miki Sayaka...

But, for whatever the reason, instead of doing any of that, Homura chose to remain quiet and contemplative and to not breathe a word to anyone.

So in finishing up cleaning up the room before her, and giving Mami the candy she had in hand for payment, Homura went to the school auditorium-and she dreamed that she would actually be in a play there, like she'd promised Madoka, and that her lies could be more than just that.

Watching the true student actors practice some there, Homura waited a good while before heading to the music store.

...

 _Madoka... I should be getting Tomoe Mami to help me out right now, to better protect you... and to even somewhat make up for my using you as a cover to lie to her, but... I think I'll wait on doing so for now. Tomoe Mami is very much an interference in this timeline, so I should focus my thoughts on the Incubator first_.

Her thoughts were positively insane, and Homura didn't lie to herself in thinking they were anything but that.

As she walked somewhat leisurely, as far as she was concerned, towards the music store-trying to get a on Kyuubey's thoughts all the while-she wondered why the things in her mind always got linked back to Madoka, even when they made no sense.

Who was she- who was she even attempting to  _talk_  to with those internal thoughts, Homura demanded of herself-suddenly having one of her episodes, where she wanted to dig her fingernails into her head to try and dig out the troublesome brain there and throw it away.

But, no. She was  _not_ going to do this now, Homura suddenly urged herself.

She had been awarded another chance-another lifetime-to save Madoka, and she'd be damned if she let the opportunity go to waste.

So with all that in mind, the brunette hopped to, entered the shopping center-all the while marveling that a society that had retractable desks, of all things, had yet to create moving sidewalks: therefore proving that Kyuubey's arguments about Earth's advancements were nothing but flawed-and finally came upon the chrome colored shop with its blue strips.

Only later would Homura wonder if maybe she should have gone to the backroom where the Witch and the alien were to be to begin with.

She hadn't- she hadn't entered this little room since she'd been a different person.

And for once... it wasn't memories of  _Madoka_  that filled Homura's head about something, but rather memories of Sayaka-during the few times they'd gotten along.

Back before time had changed, and Kyousuke had played the guitar instead of the violin-therefore having  _not_  changed Miki Sayaka's musical tastes from the rock and rap where it had originally been-the bluenette had insisted that Homura listen to every hip-hop soundtrack in the store.

And even though ballet and show tunes had been more her thing, she'd only been happy to oblige-desperate to make some new friends.

And then Miki Sayaka had bought her her favorite R&B style she could find, and-

"Oh, Homura-chan! I didn't know you liked music! Come right in, will you?"

As lost in her own memories as she currently was, Homura found that she couldn't for the life of her remember which timeline she was in, which Madoka she was now seeing, or what at all she was supposed to be doing or helping.

"H-Homura-chan?" Madoka said concernedly then, her elated face turning to one of the utmost worry, which... sadly, in turn, made Homura finally realize which universe she was in this time:

Right, the one where Madoka was all ready suspicious of her.

She sighed gravely. And then, coming up to stand beside Madoka-as she thumbed through some of the only CDs that the store still had, and miraculously found what she was looking for: a Sailor Moon CD-Homura handed what she'd found to the girl, and then asked the headphones wearing Madoka her honest question: "Madoka... say, hypothetically, that Magical Girls like the Sailor Senshi were real. And now... suppose that there was a very evil and deceptive enemy: one that only one of the girls senses the truth about, only to be doubted by the others. What would- what would you do in that situation, if it was best for one of the other girls to destroy the creature to protect them all, but they had to do keep doing it over and over again... and against the others' wishes?"

It was beyond risky asking Madoka all this, Homura knew. She didn't want to trigger any particular memories in the shorter girl, if she could help it. And she didn't want to clue Madoka into Kyuubey's honeyed and glorified promises yet either, if Madoka really didn't know yet... But Homura found that she was truly and honestly stumped.

She also felt like she was going after the Witch too late now. No doubt Sayaka-and Yuma?-was all ready in the employee area with Kyuubey and the Witch, seeing as how that one wasn't here.

Mami would also undoubtedly be showing up soon, and Homura... she found herself all ready at her wits end with this particular trial and scenario.

She didn't- she didn't know what to do anymore, and her sanity was beginning to tear once again.

But, Madoka-bless the girl-said exactly what Homura needed to hear, and steered her in the way she needed to go-putting a hand on the flailing girl's shoulder and exclaiming... "Umm... I would- I would have the girl transform close to the monster, then, so that the raw power of the transformation would destroy it? That is when a Magical Girl's the most powerful, I think, and maybe that way it would look like an accident?" Madoka said uneasily, laughing slightly as she scratched the back of her head and continued to look at Homura nervously: something that said traveler was far too used to, though she rejoiced in that it wasn't as bad as the time earlier in the day.

"But, really, Homura-chan, I'd like to think there would be another way! Violence is never the answer, and friends woul-"

"Yes: you're right, Madoka. Violence is never the answer," Homura agreed, but only in remembering how it never succeeded in keeping the Incubator away, and also how she hated killing her fellow Puella Magi and their Witches, when it came down to it.

And she most definitely hated the way she'd been forced to kill Madoka herself, Homura thought with a large swallow.

There was... also something nagging her at the back of her mind: something that shouldn't have belonged there at all. Homura wanted to reach for it, but found even with all of the power she'd learnt to control, she was unable to do so. Maybe it was for the best.

"I'll be going now; thank you, my friend." Homura patted Madoka on the head, and froze time just as the other girl had reached out to grab her hand.

Grimacing, Homura pulled away from Madoka's ever-warm touch, and began heading back towards where a battle was about to occur.

Hopefully Madoka wouldn't see.

...

Chains, chains, where were those chains at, Homura asked herself?

All around her were shades of red and black, crates full of metallic alloys-which Homura knew for sure had caught fire during more than one skirmish here-and emptiness

There were also some windows, and that fire extinguisher that Sayaka always seemed to make use of, but where were the chains?

Homura needed to use them to try and threaten, or tie up, the Incubator, if it came down to it: he often moved too fast even for her to shoot-without using her time magic or magical blasts, that was-so chains really were the best option.

If only... if only she could've found them, and not have ended up in a stupid Witch fight all ready, Homura thought miserably.

But here she was: all ready walking into a Labyrinth that looked like it was full of evil sauces, cherries, and cream on glaze.

And above all that-serving as the attacker-looked like what Homura could have only described as apple fritters, though battering rams was more like it.

And from them, some sort of substance-perhaps powdered sugar-was raining down.

Momoe Nagisa... she would have loved this place, Homura was sure of it.

And were those doughnut hole cannonballs raining down on... Yuma?!

Well, this was something Homura hadn't expected. She'd thought if anyone, Miki Sayaka or Tomoe Mami would be tearing the witch to threads, but  _Yuma_?

For just one moment, Homura thought about leaving the girl alone-and letting her fate be whatever it would be-since she really didn't need a fifth Puella Magi to worry about, and a young one at that.

But... in remembering stories about Sakura Kyoko's sister, Momo, and having met Yuma a few times herself-and also knowing how she always ended being a valuable part of the team, and just how useful her powers could be-Homura decided to intervene.

"Yuma... your power is of healing, yes? In that, your primary magic is to protect your person, so I want you to try shielding yourself now: it'll take a bit more of your magic, and be a bit more difficult than you're healing, but mostly it should come natural to you.

"Also, those apple fritters may  _now_ be a Witch's Barrier, but they were once merely a wish. I believe, for that reason, there should be a moment when their attacks become vulnerable, and you can dive into- Yes. Like that!"

Really, Homura knew that she should have been taking on this Witch anomaly herself. However, she knew that there was no way she could get to the thick of it fast enough: not when her Soul Gem was corrupting more and more; if she were to use her time stop ability now she'd turn into a witch.

Furthermore, Homura found that she was now getting rained on with canon fire, and it was all she could do to keep above water-so to speak-as the apple fritters now returned to the air, to stay a safe distance away, and watch on just as Walpurgis would have.

This Witch- what was it?

"Yuma!" Homura shouted. She had finally gotten the hang of the fallen desserts' rhythm, and was able to shoot them with no problem whatsoever.

If she were to miss even one, though, she knew that her head would instantly be decapitated, as the bombs had much more firepower than even the ones she'd used to carry.

"I want you to now try using your healing magic in reverse, Yuma. Hurt this creature instead of aiding it; I know you can do it! Besides that one stray hit just a moment ago, this Witch doesn't seem to be Targeti-

" _No_ , what are you doing?! Don't move your hands in a formation as if you're holding a bow. You  _have_  no weapon, and at this rate you'll end up like Mado-"

And as you can see, Kaname Madoka, things are getting pretty hairy for Yuma, Akemi Homura, and maybe even Miki Sayaka, if she's somewhere in all of this mess, but if you make a Contract with-

"Step away from Madoka or I will kill you right now, Incubator!" Homura growled, turning blazing eyes in his direction that would have destroyed his entire race if looks could kill.

If only, Homura thought.

And she begged fate, destiny-or whatever might have been looking out for her-for Madoka to realize that that  _this_ was the creature she'd been warning her about earlier, and not to do anything rash.

Meanwhile, Homura was finally able to really jump into the fray-going for the apple bits that looked like a pair of combined fish sticks: making up the epicenter of the Witch.

For the time being, she ignored Madoka and Kyuubey (though she hated to do so), and she used Tomoe Mami's technique of hanging upside down in the air-and slightly to the side-with two guns in hand, so that she could shoot anything that came in Yuma's way, but also focus on firing shell after shell into the Witch that now seemed to want to envelope her into the gear-like shape it had taken on.

Throwing caution to the wind, and promising herself she'd be able to hold on to hope for one extra instance, Homura went against her earlier decision about not stopping time, and did so now-emptying every last bullet she had into the Witch that was currently terrorizing her and Yuma.

When she started time again, Homura knew the Witch would be defeated, so now she just needed to focus on getting to Madoka and Kyuubey.

She ended up doing all of those things and more: she even tucked the temporarily unconscious Yuma into a little alcove-so that she could sleep off some of her slight scrapes from the powdered sugar-before she restarted time, and ended up at Madoka's side as the Labyrinth-thankfully-disrupted around them, but seemed to glint just the slightest bit before it was gone completely.

A job well done, Akemi-Homura; though I still don't sense Miki Sayaka's presence or Tomoe Mami's anywhere. Madoka should still become a Magical Girl to-

"You are wrong on that account, Incubator, and you know it well, so stop trying to trick Madoka. Tomoe Mami's location is still up for debate, yes-though I don't see how it should matter for Madoka since she doesn't seem to know her, but I now sense both Miki Sayaka and Sakura Kyoko's magical signatures coming into the mall. Do you deny it?

Apparently, he didn't. Closing his eyes at his loss, and scratching at his ear some-to no doubt try and retain some of his cuteness in Madoka's eyes-the creature said, it's true enough that I can't deny it. A job well done for you, Akemi Homura. You've won this round today.

Except that it was clear by Madoka's broken posture on the floor, and her tear-struck expression, that she hadn't won at all, Homura thought dejectedly, before she just-barely-got a handle on her emotions.

Her Soul Gem was cracking, cracking, cracking, and it would only continue to do so when Miki Sayaka would later show up and assume that she had done the worst-by hurting Yuma, or something-like always: and when Kyoko would end up brandishing the point of her spear at her throat in that exact moment.

"Homura-chan..." Madoka just barely gasped out, as she began rocking herself back and forth.

Homura wanted to reach out and hug the girl, to calm her down, but she knew that she couldn't allow herself it. Not ever again. But  _why_?

"Homura..." Madoka continued, interrupting Homura's thoughts and centering her like only she could. "I don't- I don't understand what's happening! What was that thing you were fighting?! Are you- are you all right? What's happened to Yuma? Will she be okay? And Sayaka-chan... you said that she's safe? Who is- who is this 'Tomoe Mami' person: whom Hitomi-chan was talking about earlier? What is Kyuubey?

"Just what- just what is going on?! And if I can help you all in some way... why won't you let me? Oh, wait! Is Kyuubey the evil creature you were-

"Why didn't you- why didn't you let me make a Contract, but destroy him by tr-tr-transforming next to him, like we were talking about?! Nothing is-"

And Madoka was yelling now-getting up to her feet, even-and seeming to want to grab onto Homura's shoulders with a sudden fury: something she more than deserved, as far as Homura was concerned. "Nothing is making any sense. Please help me. Please explain!"

Absolutely broken now, and sensing the Witch within her about to rise, Homura replied with a surprising monotone, "You couldn't have done that, Madoka, because... it's you. The person who never believes me about that beast, and never wants to destroy him, is  _you_. And what's worse... is you never realize by becoming one of us, you give him exactly what he wants. Always."

The only sound that met Homura's ears then-other then the sound of the chains that had finally been found, only to hint at Sayaka's return to this place-was the sound of Madoka's breathless squeak of, "Oh."

Homura cringed-for Madoka once again being so mouse-like again in this incarnation, and for so much else she was only just recalling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably my biggest project-and one of the ones I'm most proud of for reasons-but it'll be a long time until I finish this, if ever. I feel bad about that, but whatever. It's for Liz's birthday, so hopefully it's worth it:)
> 
> Also, most of the references here are from Madoka canon stuff; a lot of it I'm not making up, as there's all ready a lot to work with. Just thought you guys should know... And you should def go check out the Madoka PSP game, if you haven't, 'cause that's where I got a lot of this.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> And most importantly: happy birthday again, Liz! Hope you liked;)
> 
> P.S. Is Homura just seeing things with Mami here? You'll have to wait and see. But I will say that Homura's kind of very insane in this story. Anyway…
> 
> P.P.S. I think Homura might be Bi in this story. Maybe…


	2. The Love We Think We Feel, But Maybe We Don’t: Maybe We Don’t Use It Properly

**Homura's PoV**

Sometimes, Homura wondered if there would ever come a time where she would stop being amazed by Madoka's kindness.

She also knew the opposite of that idea was true, too: that once upon a time, she had thought it possible that Madoka's infallible kindness couldn't be true, and that eventually the girl would show off her true colors, and Homura had known if that had happened...

Well, she really would have lost her mind in that scenario, for learning that the certain person she'd tried to save for so long really didn't even exist at all.

But right now? Madoka was continuing to prove that any future under the stars was possible for her, through that blasted Incubator, except for one where she became anything but good and true.

She and Homura had only known each other for a day in this timeline—a measly day, that unlike it was for Homura wouldn't end up getting repeated again and again and again for Madoka—and _already_ the pinkette was begging the blue and the red Onis to throw down their weapons, and to spare her life--therefore making it all the more than clear to Homura that she'd never be able to repay all the niceties that Madoka had already showed her this time. She sighed.

"Madoka, with all due respect, that's a terrible idea!" Sayaka argued, just like Homura had known that she would, for she only ever had anger and resentment burning in her veins for her.

Tomoe Mami was much the same way, actually.

And not for the first time, that Homura stayed pressed against a wall that Kyoko had forced her into, she wondered why she just hadn't killed the pest before it could come to this.

The same could have been said about Yuma, too, Homura supposed—as she concentrated on her magic, so that she couldn’t feel the pain, as blood dripped down from her neck, the way that ice cream might drip from a popsicle—since she had been the caused this whole mess!

"I tell ya, Madoka!" Sayaka continued on, and each word she spoke was like a gunshot in the head for Homura, because she’d been stupid to not sense Sayaka’s magic and realize right away that she’d made a Contract. "There's somethin' about this girl: she's bad news, and I don't think we should trust or help her at all."

After those words had left Sayaka’s mouth, Homura had noticed that Madoka was looking back and forth between the two girls who each acted as her best friend, depending on the timeline.

And surprisingly enough… Homura found that she was sick of it. She couldn’t have any sympathy for Madoka in this moment, because all of her sympathy had been applied elsewhere—to herself and her lacerated neck, maybe—and she found that she almost wished that Kyoko would finish the job on her now, so that she could at least feel _something_.

Oddly, though, the redhead’s grip on her spear began to slacken, and Homura had to resist the urge to complain about her form, because if she was making mistakes now… Well, it would only get worse when Walpurgisnacht came, wouldn’t it?

It was about at that moment, when Homura was spiraling more and more out of control—and even thinking of giving up on her endeavors to save Madoka: blasphemy, she knew—that Yuma stepped forward and finally made her part of the story known.

Yuma... Homura had never known how to feel about her. Back when she'd been a young, impressionable, and hopeful Magical Girl—a fool—she had sometimes dreamt of Shizuki Hitomi making a Contract and becoming their sixth ranger.

And, of course, for those efforts, Homura had thought that the Shizuki girl would be awarded with a green outfit.

And even before that, and having nothing to do with them being Puella Magi, Homura had at first thought about becoming friends with Hitomi, that way she could be friends with all of precious Kaname-san’s nearest and dearest, so that they could all maybe have a merry life together that way.

Reality and fate, however, had had other plans for them all.

So Homura had never known how to feel about Yuma _blatantly_ showing up in the color and type of ensemble that she'd once imagined for someone else.

She was _not_ the evergreen Magi that she herself had envisioned in the past, but then again… knowing her personal track record about things, maybe that was really for the best, Homura thought.

Maybe… maybe Yuma’s presence here was a good thing. Maybe she’d once again be the Ace in the Hole that would lead them to succeeding, just like they almost had before Oriko had spoiled everything that time.

Yeah… Homura wasn’t really buying that idea, either.

"Nuh-uh," Yuma said quickly, and with very little emphasis, in the strange accented way of talking that she had. "This girl didn't hurt me. She actually tried to _help_ me, like how I want to be a helper to my onee-chan, Kyoko."

Child Magical Girls... Homura started thinking, in mild amazement. Why had she never thought to enlist them to help her before all this?!

Though less skilled, she could easily teach them to help her against the Carnival Witch, Homura knew. They were better to rely on—and better to function, as they didn’t get hung up on stupid, emotional crap that would deter them—than even their Senpai.

As Kyoko, having apparently heard enough, hefted Homura down from where she’d been positioned (and took everything Homura had within herself to not smash the girls’ head in with her buckler for revenge), Sayaka huffed at her angrily.

Having had quite enough of that, Homura offered her an ultimatum. “You don’t need to be in this fight, Miki Sayaka. It’ll only bring you pain. Go now, and be around Kamijo Kyosuke if you must, and leave the fighting to Yuma, Tomoe Mami, Sakura Kyoko, and myself.”

Truthfully, Homura had thought about finding Nagisa and adding her to that claim, as well, but she kept silent. It was bad enough that she’d be leading young Yuma off to her death. Did she really want to do the same for Nagisa, too?

She... she really was an awful person, wasn't she?

“Actually, just give me your Soul Gem. I will keep it close enough to you, so that you will not lose control over your body, but at the first sight of imperfection I will clean it myself, and save you the effort.”

Homura made a beeline to where she thought Sayaka’s Soul Gem rested over her naval—she’d rip it from her stomach, if she had to—but she was surprised to find that it wasn’t there at all.

This was… this was new. And anything new was positively frightening to Homura. She gasped out loud before she glared at the girl, daring her to be a fool and not tell her where her bloody soul was.

“Don’t know everything like you think you do, do you Transfer Student?”

"Ehehehe," Madoka began awkwardly then, looking down at the damned chain that Homura had been looking for earlier coiled around her girlfriend’s feet. "I'm glad that you—and this mysterious redhead--didn't kill Homura-chan as much as the next person, Sayaka-chan. But can someone _please_ explain to me what's going on, and why you even had that ridiculous idea to begin with?!"

Though Madoka had done well to hide it in the first sentence, Homura could tell that the rose-haired girl was _beyond_ furious—and showing it—by the end of her little speech.

Homura could hardly blame her for it: only two days into this new timeline, and everyone was already at odds with each other.

Sayaka in particular seemed more Witch-like then ever—if that was even possible, Homura thought bitterly—but she knew that she was just as bad.

She either needed to use a Grief Seed STAT, or to use her magic to shut off the "pain" in her emotions.

Knowing how rare Grief Seeds were going to be now that there were already five Magical Girls in the city, Homura decided that she'd later go with the emotions option.

But, really... this was bad. She'd wanted to kill two people in cold blood, almost—not even as mercy kills this time—and such an atrocious thought hadn't come to her in a very, _very_ long time.

Homura even found herself wishing that the white hot anger that Madoka was currently directing at Sayaka would come her way.

She more than deserved it, after all, but at the same time... Homura sensed that Madoka was going back to her more docile self now, and whatever fury she'd been housing just a moment ago was just as quickly long gone.

Very much reluctantly—and even moreso against her will, as she took to healing herself, as not to upset Madoka any further—Homura told the small girl everything that she could.

Sayaka didn't end up taking it well at all, that the "new transfer student" was telling her best friend a big secret that only she should have had the privilege to—Kyubey didn't seem too happy, either, if the way he kept pacing back and forth on the floor was anything to go by—but for the most part Homura chose to ignore him: the sooner that Madoka realized making a Contract with him didn’t make you an “Ally of Justice”, the better.

“Go home now, Madoka… You, too, Miki Sayaka. Your own parents are probably starting to worry about you. Leave the rest of this discussion to Sakura Kyoko and me.”

Sensing that Madoka was less than thrilled, and that she had many questions currently buzzing in her mind, Homura promised her beloved—as she took to destroying the very chains she’d been after earlier; maybe… maybe if Madoka didn’t see her stepping on them eerily this time, she might actually trust her more?—that she'd answer any remaining question she had for her the next day… even _if_ it was starting to unsettle Homura that Madoka seemed to be looking at her, and sensing her secrets even this early.

“Sakura Kyoko,” Homura started speaking just as soon as Madoka and Sayaka left the room, the Incubator also walking through the wall and disappearing as they did so.

It took all of the willpower that Homura had within herself to not send a blast of energy where Kyubey had left, so she could hopefully eradicate this particular Incubator before it told more of its honeyed lies to Madoka, but knowing that using that kind of magic would definitely turn her into a Witch, she resisted.

“Do you know that you cannot trust Kyubey? I’m sure that you do, if he has bamboozled Yuma into making a Contract without your consent again. Since he cannot be trusted, I’m going to set up a telepathy link with everyone who was just here. I will not give them the luxury of telling them that, but I will do so with you, as I feel like you and I might have a lot in common this time.”

At the end of her words, Homura smiled, though she knew she really shouldn’t have been. Why should she ever smile about the situation they were in—and that Kyoko was so much like her?—she also sounded way too robotic now, and ought to have been doing something about it. But she was too far gone to even care.

All that Homura could care about in this moment was that the other girl was munching on a taiyaki and at least offering her a small wink.

And when she'd just been about to leave herself, Kyoko stopped her, with a rough hand on her shoulder. All the senses that Homura had gained over the last many years screamed at her to, at the very least, defend herself, but instead she did nothing.

Chomping on that piece of food so fast and loudly—while Yuma, ironically, was off on the other side of the room flossing her teeth—Kyoko growled out, "Yo… speaking of which, Piglet: the muggle might not have picked up on it yet—or that idiot Sayaka, for that matter—but _I_ could tell easily enough that 'chu was hintin' about sum stuff 'bout Magical Girls. Now, don't get your panties in a twist; I ain't gonna tell 'em shit, though I have some 'spicions about it all myself, but just know that you ain't as slick as you might think, and tha' you might could use someone like me. 'Kay?"

“Actually,” Homura said, practically beaming now, as she took the candy cigarette that Kyoko was offering to her out of her hand…

It didn’t escape Homura’s attention, either, that Yuma seemed to now be chewing on that kind of candy herself, while holding the floss she’d been using in one hand. Kyoko was such a bad influence, but Homura was thankful for her all the same.

"I was wondering if I could ask you something, Sakura Kyoko. The Witch that Yuma and I were fighting today, that was just dissipating as you came in... had you seen any like that before in Mitakihara city, or even Kazimino? Walpurgisnacht will be coming to this city in just a few months, and I fear that if that’s the kind of Witch that will be making it up this time, we might well be doomed."

After having looped back and forth across time for at least twelve years, Homura had never seen a Witch like that in all of her travels. Something… something wasn’t at all right about it. And as it happened whenever there was any anomaly in a timeline, it had Homura worrying for Madoka.

The uncertain look in Sakura Kyoko's eyes gave Homura all the answer that she needed: that she’d been seeing way too many Witches lately, who seemed completely base, but were anything but.

Homura’s breath hitched in her throat.

For just a moment, Homura also considered asking Kyoko if she'd noted the oddity that was Tomoe Mami's skin color this time, but she quickly opted out of that one.

She'd had enough weirdness in the universe for one day.

And as it happened, the time traveler had other things to worry about just now.

So after saying a quick adieu to the remaining two girls, Homura jumped onto the podium she'd once come down from to try and intimidate Madoka into submission, and then swiftly hopped through an open window just above her.

It may have been the trick of the light… but Homura almost could’ve sworn she’d just seen Kyoko get darker, too.

She would have to save that knowledge for later, wouldn’t she?

...

Later that night, Homura was trying to decide how to make the best use of her time.

For the moment, Madoka seemed to be okay (well, as good as she could be expected to be, after everything that had happened), but Homura knew that that could change at any time.

As she sat back in her white sofa, downing a strawberry yogurt while she still had the time to do so, the Magical Girl noted that she really should have been planning on how best to confront her best friend tomorrow, to make dead certain that the girl wasn't getting any ideas into her head about signing Kyubey's Contract.

And… as much as Homura loved them, Madoka's parents never seemed to guide her into a decision away from that at all.

She also had Tomoe Mami, Sakura Kyoko, and Miki Sayaka to worry about, of course—as she focused on her time sensitive powers, and made it so the usual moment Mami began her “The Magical Girl Experience lesson” again, she’d be aware of it.

She also knew well from experience that tomorrow could easily be the beginning of the Kyosuke fiasco, which was just _oh so_ fun.

But even beyond that, Homura now had Yuma to think of, the weirdness going on with Mami and Kyoko's looks, the fact that Sayaka had somehow been able to obscure her magic, and as always… the Oriko situation, and maybe even the Pleiades Saints.

As always, everything that Homura had to handle was far too much for any one person to deal with, but since she knew it was for Madoka, Homura would manage it all no matter what.

In fact, going along with that very idea, the Magical Girl slightly nodded to herself, threw her yogurt away, and got up to go hunt some Witches and earn some Grief Seeds.

Or… at least she would have, if the oddest anomaly to ever happen to her in a timeline hadn’t ended up occurring then.

"Kyubey… I don’t know about this. Why- why are you leading me through a hole you made into this apartment building. Where- where are you taking m- Homura-chan?!"

"Mad-doka?" Homura could only barely choke out, as she whirled around to face the pink-haired girl that had apparently broken into her house!

The way that Madoka had been talking, though, it sounded as if the Incubator had tricked her and that she’d had no idea where she was going at all!

Homura waited patiently then for Madoka to instantly begin apologizing nervously, as she was always so like to do, or to maybe even try running away from her.

None of those things ended up happening, however. Instead, Madoka only looked uncomfortable for but a moment, before she ended up setting her jaw and meeting Homura with a look she’d never seen before.

“I- I’m so sorry, Homura-chan! I have no idea what Kyubey thought bringing me here. I’ll- I’ll leave right away, I promise! But first, while I’m here… do you mind- do you mind answering to me why Sayaka was able to hide her magic, and why she seemed set on killing you after you found out that she- that she made a Contract?”

Honestly, Homura was beginning to freak out. She even felt like she might have begun to convulse—like one other time, in another timeline, that she was almost certain had happened—because while things completely going left field wasn’t exactly unheard of in her travels, never had she encountered something such as this, and never had any other time ended up so flawed as this.

Just what had she done in starting things so differently this time?! Now she had no idea what to expect going forward, and if that was the case Homura supposed she’d pretty much have to cement herself at Madoka’s side at all times to protect her!

She tried not to let any of her panic show, though—or her anger at Madoka going anywhere with Kyubey after what they’d discussed earlier, or how unsure she now felt that Madoka… almost seemed to be hinting that Sayaka wanting to murder her hadn’t completely been her fault, and that Homura herself should have acted differently then to try and prevent it—when she ended up answering:

“I… I have no idea how you’ve learned about magical residue so soon, Madoka. And I… I have no idea how Miki Sayaka was able to hide hers, or why she would. You’re also right in thinking she had many ample reasons to kill me. I-”

 _It’s almost times like these, that I wish I still had medication for my heart. That way I could overdose on it, knock myself out, and not have to see you staring me down the way you normally would Walpurgisnacht_.

You’re good to tell Kaname Madoka the truth about magic and everything, Akemi Homura. I thought for sure that you’d lie to her and tell her that no such thing exists, that she’s insane, and so should especially shouldn’t listen to me. But now that you’re not making any of this sound horrible at all, I must thank you greatly, Akemi Homura!

“Incu- Incubator-” Madoka was quick to chastise the creature, which was good; if it had continued talking like that, Homura might have wanted to try shooting it one hundred times in front of Madoka to get it to shut up.

One for each time she’d already tried and failed to save the girl that she loved.

“Will you please stop talking in such a way? You’re only giving Homura more room to doubt you, and I… I want to tell you both that I’m on middle ground right now. I don’t- I don’t know enough to really understand what’s going on, or know who’s more knowledgeable, but I’m going to be taking this whole thing cautiously! I won’t rush into a decision, but…

“Homura-chan, earlier you mentioned being a play. I get- I get now that you were just saying that, to protect your cover, but I get the sense that you weren’t completely lying that you do a certain thing at that time every day, either. And so- and so if it’s something Magical Girl related, I guess I want to go with you, so I can maybe understand firsthand why you hate it so much.”

This was… this was more than Homura had ever hoped for! That, though still somewhat hesitant, that she’d mostly go into this magic talk with an unfavorable look at it.

And not only that, but that she wanted Homura herself to be her Senpai, to show her why she thought being a Puella Magi was bad!

Homura- Homura should have been jumping for boy, shouldn’t she have? But instead- instead she was focused on Madoka’s footing, and how it looked like her ankle was hurt with its position on the floor and that she might trip in her school shoes and lose her footing at any moment.

It- it reminded Homura of something. It reminded Homura of something that scared her, even, though she couldn’t put her finger on it.

But all the while, Madoka looked fiercer than Homura ever remembered her being—and that even if she were to break _both_ her feet, maybe, she’d still find a way to stand and reach her desires.

“I’ll see you at school, then, tomorrow, Madoka, and we can start the type of journey that you spoke of,” Homura said, smiling at the girl.

“Err… Right, then. Goodnight!” And with that, Madoka was leaving through Homura’s door, though getting her outfit caught on a clothes rack outside, and Homura remembered one time when Madoka had shown her one of her desired Magical Girl outfits… but had drawn herself getting carried away by birds in it.

For the first time that she could remember in a long time, Homura laughed, and prepared to go to bed and have good dreams, maybe.

Even if Kyubey’s beady red eyes were locked on her, seeming to size her up, before he seemed to give up on whatever he’d been thinking and stalked away.

...

The very next day, Homura knew she would have been lying if she said she had idea of what to do first.

She could've been discussing important things with Sakura Kyoko, that was for sure, as they already seemed to be allies in this world.

But then again, since she already had a handle on Kyoko this time around, perhaps she should have been wondering about Tomoe Mami or the always difficult Miki Sayaka?

Of course, as always, the forefront of Homura's heart and mind said that she ought to have been checking on Madoka, but she didn’t want to scare the girl away when she really seemed to have something right going with her this time. Madoka was usually fine in this part of the loop, anyway.

And so walking into her class, Homura ended up making her choice, and it was one she'd never thought she'd make, either:

"Sensei... I have a difficult, and maybe even personal, question to ask you. If you don't want to answer, that's fine, and I pray that you won't hate me too greatly for my line of questioning, but did you... Did you ever have a friend of yours go missing when you were girls, after she rattled on about magic, miracles, and wishes?"

If she were to be honest with herself—as she stood in front of her teacher awkwardly, adjusting her black socks—Homura wasn't even entirely sure why she was asking this of her most hated annoyance. She just knew from a few irregular timelines, that this woman had dated a teacher from a neighboring town, and that in that said town, one of the police officers had once had a childhood friend who had been a Magical Girl before disappearing.

Why Homura was thinking Saotome Kazuko would have a connection to the Puella Magi she really wanted to get at, Homura didn’t know. But... if there was even the slightest chance that she could resurrect the memory of this Mahou Shoujo within her Sensei, Homura thought that it could only benefit her.

Perhaps if she explained to her professor that they themselves were “Allies of Justice”, as Miki Sayaka would put it—and bent on protecting the city—then maybe she'd even excuse them sometimes, or act to help them?

It was a lot to ask for, Homura knew—especially since the woman seemed about to fall over face-first in shock—but for whatever the reason... she was very much in a hopeful mood this timeline, so it was worth a shot.

Plus, if she even got the melancholy woman herself believing in miracles for once, maybe her melancholy lectures would change, which also would be a much appreciated thing, as Homura could pretty much quote anything she ever said.

"Hmm... Akemi-san, are you referring to the fact that one of my former friends had made some sort of Contract with an invisible 'Kyubey'?" The nurturer said as simply as possible, and even with a bit of cheer in her voice.

Mortified, Homura was about to ask the woman why she sounded so happy, if her friend had seemed to disappear for it but she was interrupted when the good lady began talking again, sounding resigned, and nearly broke her pointer stick with all her pent up emotion:

"I could never really confirm her story, sadly. As apparently I didn't have the ability to see this faerie that grants wishes? But there was something in her eyes that told me she was speaking the truth, before she left me to fight the good fight, as it were. Who knows? Maybe that's why I look for such fantasy and perfection in my own unfolding story! But Akemi-san, why do you ask?"

Okay, so the woman wasn’t a sadist after all, then. She just hadn’t noticed that her friend had died. That was much better than what Homura had begun to think it to be.

In fact, she nearly even smiled at Saotome sensei, who was usually only a nuisance to her, but she still couldn’t do it.

Instead, Homura callously got to her main goal, mostly demanding but trying to word it in a direction that didn’t seem that way.

"Umm... ma'am, I was wondering if maybe it would be possible for you to set up a Magical Girl support faction he-"

"Ahh, umm, Akemi-san... I like where you're coming from with this, but I don’t think what you’re doing is the best thing to do, if you don't mind me saying."

At first, Homura didn't realize that it was Tomoe Mami standing behind her and interrupting her, because most people her age usually called her “Ameki-chan”, not “Akemi-san”.

And it was when she acknowledged that, and turned around slowly, that she realized it only made sense that it be Tomoe Mami, since she’d always been one to call her “Akemi-san”, hadn’t she?

Once Homura received her wits about her again, she bowed to her instructor—to let her know she wasn’t trying to be rude to her, and would get back to her in a second—and prepared herself for whatever this version of Mami was about to dish out for her.

Homura furrowed her eyebrows and she glared wholeheartedly.

It didn’t end up lasting, though. Far too soon, Homura ended up losing her nerve completely—and gasping aloud—when she noticed that Mami’s skin was no longer the chocolate brown she’d seen it as yesterday, but rather the milky white that she’d always known.

Not for the first time, Homura wondered if maybe she'd gone completely insane, and what she'd thought she'd seen yesterday had never even happened at all.

Homura almost began crying for that fact, but after years of mastering her emotions, she held it in.

"I mean," Mami continued on, talking delicately now, as if she knew how thoroughly all of Homura’s carefully constructed walls might crumble now. "I know it's not my place to say so, seeing as how we barely know each other, and we had a weird… encounter yesterday, but... If this place becomes an area where we Magical Girls can work on their magic here, don't you think that takes one last escape away, and maybe even gives another reason to despair?"

Homura flipped her hair, to give the impression that she thought what Mami said was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard, but deep down she worried that she was right. And here she’d thought she’d come up with an excellent plan, too.

Or, at least, that had seemed to be the case, but now Saotome sensei was brushing them off, seeming to indicate that Homura should take her seat and that Mami should return to her own class:

“Now settle down, girls. And I won’t let the others know that even at your age you play these games—if you don’t want me to, that is—but only if you behave now!” the older woman winked at them both, and Homura suppressed a sigh. So her teacher was half on board, half off board with this, then. She somewhat believed in the aspect of Magical Girls, but she wasn’t completely sold on it, either. To that end, she was hedging her bets and as such, Homura was at a loss again.

Right now there were much larger things to worry about, though, Homura realized as Madoka finally walked in—but at this moment Madoka wasn’t even her main concern; instead, she crossed her arms over her chest angrily and hissed at the golden girl, “How is it- how is it that you know so much about despair, Tomoe Mami? You may be a veteran, but you’re not the oldest Magical Girl, either. You’re still green around the ears in some ways, and-”

 _A_ _nd if you find out even more about this despair nonsense, will you snap and kill everyone again?_ Homura just barely kept from saying aloud, as flashes of that event flashed within her mind over and over again.

But if nothing else, Tomoe Mami seemed a bit more levelheaded this time, Homura thought, what with her actually helping with class cleanups and being around people again.

That was good, and Homura might have had the slightest bit of hope for her once-Senpai again… if she wasn’t so confused about other things about her right now, that was. Just what was she doing in this class before her own was about to begin, anyway?

"You do make a fair point, Tomoe Mami," Homura continued to placate the other girl and to try to butter her up for her real desire, more than anything else.

Meanwhile, Momoe Nagisa of all people had just entered the room and was talking to Madoka, who had her crayons out again.

Did that- did that mean that she was the one who had made a wish that had modified Madoka’s desk, and not Yuma, like she and Madoka had both been thinking?

Annoying the stimuli in her mind that made Homura want to focus on Madoka and nothing else, she instead focused on the girl who was fumbling with her hair piece, as if she was subconsciously missing the soul gem that was often there.

“I will therefore adhere to not turning this place into a Magical Girl training camp. But now, if you don't mind... there's a question I must ask of you. About when you had first gotten your powers, you saved a girl named Michiru in another city, correct?" And when Mami looked at her blankly, but still nodded, Homura saw it as her cue to go on.

"Now, I'm not sure if you're aware, but after that fact, that girl was swayed by Kyubey's words and she became a Magical Girl herself, and then... then she enlisted the help of other girls to join her cause: one of them being a 'Niko', who... had the uncanny ability to make her own Kyubey."

Scarily enough to Homura, after she'd just finished dispensing her thoughts, Mami had taken to wearing an almost sinister type of smile—the type of which Homura herself had only ever seen when Mami chose to challenge her. Did that mean that that was going to happen now?

"I feel..." Mami began kindly enough, which was a sharp contrast to the look she'd been wearing on her face but a millisecond ago. "I feel, Akemi-san, that there might be a lot more to what you’re saying than you yourself know. Jubey will not work for you in the way that you want him to, in being able to clean Soul Gems.

“Furthermore, Niko's powers are actually much more than what you've listed here, and you would have to try and… go kidnap her, to get her to help you. I don't-- I don't recommend that. And simply stealing her enchanted printer won't do you any good, either."

As Homura saw out of the corner of her eye that Sayaka had just walked in—sporting a brooch on her bow for the first time that the violet Magi could remember, that now Madoka even seemed to be admiring—Homura was about to protest everything that Mami had just said, as Saotome sensei walked around the blonde girl to start the smartboard just behind her.

But Mami didn’t seem to be interested in their previous conversation at all. Instead, she showed Homura her Soul Gem in the form of her ring—to show her just how serious her next words were, though there was something in her eyes Homura didn’t understand—and said, “I sense… I sense an extra powerful Witch around this school right now, Akemi-san. And it- I feel like it’ll only migrate closer to here once the school bell rings. If you want to help me hunt it down tonight, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

And just like that, the girl gracefully left the room without another world—like the figure skater she’d once wanted to be like might do—and class for the eighth graders officially started.

The rest of the day past mostly uneventful, which was more than enough for Homura. She was neither trying to do well in math or gym class anymore—or even Home Ec, that usually she was a disaster in and so could probably benefit from trying there a bit more—but neither was she attempting to do badly, either.

Homura decided that she would just let the chips fall where they’d may for this part of her life, and in the end—if she didn’t end up graduating middle school, so be it; she’d been to school enough times now, anyway, and couldn’t even imagine ever trying to go through high school and university, if this ended up the time she succeeded.

Fortunately, Homura wasn’t on cleanup duty today, so she could avoid Madoka—who did happen to have that duty, it seemed—easily enough… as well as Tomoe Mami, if she ended up coming here again for whatever reason.

As she stood up from her desk, and prepared to exit the classroom—trying to decide if she should go attempt to get some weapons from the Yakuza so early—Homura found herself noting some sort of conversation going on between Shizuki Hitomi and Miki Sayaka.

This was no surprise to Homura, for it had often seemed to her that the Shizuki girl was actually bit closer to Sayaka than she was Madoka, until the boy ended up coming into the situation, but… they seemed a bit tense right now. It was far too early for anything with Kyosuke to be occurring, so what did that mean?

The Magical Girl thought about freezing time then, to go over to them and get a better look at their faces, but when the two of them exited sooner than she did—now seeming to both laugh uproariously, with Hitomi bonking Sayaka’s shoulder once as she did so—she chalked it up to weirdos being weirdos, and made her own disappearing act.

…

Homura sighed happily—or with the closest she could get to happiness, anyway—as she pressed the Grief Seed to her corrupted Gem, and allowed it to take all the imperfections away.

While it was true that she had been doing better than expected—all because of Madoka offering to go and learn about the Magical Girl system with her; were it not for that, Homura suspected she would have given into despair yesterday and never looked back; it was nice to know that she was completely herself again, and didn’t have to worry about herself hurting Madoka by unwittingly turning into a Witch anytime soon.

She also relished in being able to use some magical blasts again. Homura tried to make it a point not to rely on them, but more than once that had been the easiest way she could kill Kyubey before he got to Madoka, so she would gladly hold onto her lilac fire, thank you very much.

“Yo! Piglet! Whaddaya think ur doin’, killin’ the Witch like that? It was reckless comin’ here on ur part! Don’chu know the Witches r more powerful than before? Ur form was so bad just now, since ur magic was almost all used up, that u really coulda used my help, Rookie.”

Homura scoffed. If there was anything she certainly wasn’t, it was a “rookie”, as Kyoko had just put it. Who was it that always ended up destroying the Witches that the red Magi died while facing, anyway?

Though Homura had to admit—as the wards around her completely faded away, just leaving the picture of some green-haired girl looking like she’d been traveling for just a moment—that Kyoko did have a point:

The Witches here, and their new strength, was nothing that Homura had faced before. And perhaps she’d be a fool to try this without help, when Madoka was depending on her. After all… Homura sensed the only way she’d been able to defeat this one was because it had been a Familiar that had only just turned into a Witch.

Kyoko jumped down from where she’d slightly been hiding—atop a scaffolding that Homura suspected she really should have known wouldn’t be vacant, as this was the area where she and Sayaka always had their fight—and as she leaped onto one of the etched diamonds on the street, and even accidentally sprayed some rain water onto the time traveler’s face, Homura found that she was glad for that very little gesture.

Sometimes… sometimes Miki Sayaka would actually become a Witch here, and kill Kyoko in this space, so seeing that that wasn’t the case—and feeling the redhead effect her in some way—was a nice bit of reality for Homura, and reminded her that she did care about this Magical Girl quite a lot.

“Sakura Kyoko… you are not wrong. In fact, I find that I could use you or Tomoe Mami’s help very much so, if you’d be kind enough to offer it. I… I’ll be sure to give you the Grief Seeds. You don’t have to worry about that. But there’s something you should know- the Witches that we fight, they were really once Magical Girls.”

Later on, Homura would berate herself for telling Kyoko this. What if this started to make Kyoko fall? What if she, and the others, would think she was a liar again and that _she_ was somehow the source of all Witches? What if Kyoko ended up telling Mami again, and she committed suicide?

These were all reasonable fears to have, and yet… Seeing Kyoko alive again, and remembering how the two of them had already made an alliance—Homura had had some candy cigarettes to back that up, hadn’t she?—and noting that Kyoko seemed to be somewhat trying to protect her just now… she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

In that instance, Homura had thought that telling Kyoko the truth early on would be the best, and she could only pray that it would be for the best…

 Even if Kyoko hadn’t believed it at all.

“Tch. Ur pretty funny, Piglet. I’ll give you that. And I can tell that you ain’t one to mess around. U’s on the level, so u must really be tryin’ to get me on ya side here, fo whatever reason, but- If u really wanted me to believe wha’chu said, u shoulda banked on only the new, super-powered Witches being once us. There’s hella no way I’d ever transform into the old duds, I mean.”

 _Hopefully you’ll never find out the truth, then_ , Homura thought with a melancholy air to her. But despite all of that, she thought she’d made her best decision so far today.

It meant that she would no doubt have to stand up Madoka and Tomoe Mami now, in choosing to ally with Kyoko, but Homura thought that she could live with that.

Mami, because Kyoko had proven to be a more reliable ally time and time again, and because Homura never really knew what to make of the blonde.

And Madoka, because Homura wouldn’t ever have her in danger—or anywhere that might allow her to see the glory of a Magical Girls, and not the hideous parts—and also…

**And also because if she makes a Contract again, she’ll be more powerful and one-up anything that I can ever do in a Labyrinth. Her arrows that she shoots, and she herself, are far more glorious and beautiful than I could ever hope to be, and I can’t have that.**

What the- what the hell kind of thought was that? Homura wondered, as she leaned her head down and nearly retched on the red alley beneath her.

That wasn’t- that wasn’t her! And she’d never have a such an idea about Madoka like that, so what-

“Piglet girl, u seem like ur Soul Gem’s cloudin’ up again. Here, I think the Grief Seed tha’chu collected has one more use in it. Do sumthin’ with it befor’ I change my mind and take it.”

Not needing to be told twice, Homura once again put the Seed up against her churning, changing Soul, and let it do its work.

And though it did end up working, she found that she was quite… fearful. Fearful of herself. One stupid—awful!—stray thought should have never fogged her up the way it just had, and yet- and yet that was exactly what had happened!

Could it be possible that these awful, out of character moments in a Magical Girl were the sources of the more powerful Witches, then?!

It was definitely something to consider for later, that was for sure.

Now, though... Now Homura had much bigger fish to fry.

“There should be another Witch today, Sakura Kyoko. Tomoe Mami is probably already heading toward it, and though I don’t want to fight her… We should get there and destroy it before she… and Madoka do.”

Because now Homura was no longer lying to herself that if she didn’t take Madoka on these escapades like she’d promised, her going to team up with Tomoe Mami would be exactly what she’d do.

“Let’s- let’s go!” And Homura was already half-way up to the fire escape that Kyoko herself had just come from—jumping back and forth between the two walls until she got up on a roof, as Kyoko had done many a time—when she heard this from the redhead:

“Oh, bi the way. The only reason I’m helpin’ u at all, is ‘cause that annoyin’ Sayaka seems to be goin’ to travel with her one gay ass friend. And now- and now I have no one else to boss around, so I guess it’ll have ta be u, Piglet.”

…

When the two of the girls ended up trying to track the Witch with their Soul Gems, Homura tried her best not to get irritated at Kyoko.

It seemed to Homura that the other girl was already in love with Miki Sayaka somehow, but was playing it off the way that she always did.

She was having one real and honest moment, though, in trying to respect the teamwork that she and Sayaka had both had for a short time.

…And was doing so by using her own Soul Gem to track the Witch, as Homura suspected that she knew well that Sayaka didn’t like her, and thus didn’t want to completely betray her yet by leaving everything to the “Transfer Student”.

Homura wanted to smack her for it!

Damnit, _she_ knew where all of the Witches were, but she couldn’t “reveal it” without using her own Soul Gem to find them, lest she come off suspect.

Deciding it was best not to ruin the allegiance she’d just made with Kyoko, though, Homura irritably shut up and bided her time, but if it turned out that Madoka made it there before them, Homura thought it was likely that she’d probably kill the red girl.

So lost in her thoughts was she, that Homura didn’t notice where exactly the two of them now were until Kyoko brought it up. “Shit… This is that one dude’s hospital! We have to protect it!”

It was just like numerous loops before: there was a Witch about to hatch on one of the walls—though this time Homura didn’t think that it was Momoe Nagisa—and of course it looked like Madoka and Mami had already entered it!

Homura didn’t waste any time in using her magic to be able to enter the Labyrinth, and she brought Kyoko in with her, but she was torn:

She didn’t know what was going to happen here, as the Witch was one she’d never faced before. She wouldn’t know what moves to expect here, or what unforeseen consequences might occur!

Deciding that she was going to at least find one thing out here and now, though—as the two of them walked over what looked like an ice bridge that would drop one forty stories should they fall, not that Homura was exactly worried about that, she asked, “Has Miki Sayaka already healed Kamijo Kyosuke?” _I need to know if she might try to kill me if something bad happens here_.

Surprisingly, Kyoko didn’t have an answer to that right away—as she knocked back some paper snowflakes with her spear, that seemed to turn into a plushie like substance as they got closer to their target. “Y’know… I actually dunno that. I feel… I feel like Nagisa maybe made a wish that somehow healed that nerd. And Sayaka, stupidly riding on the waves of that, let Kyubey fool her real good.”

Homura was moving into a run now, because even though just before this Barrier had seemed like a snow lover’s paradise—now there were hot coals beneath their feet and Homura had to run, lest the blood begin bursting beneath her feet.

Kyoko seemed to have realized the same thing, too, and was moving as gracefully as she would in saving Sayaka from Elsa Maria.

“What do you mean he tricked her? Kyoko, does that mean that you know-”

The brunette’s words were effectively cut off, when the two of them finally made it to the heart of the trap.

Despite the turn-off the two of them had just had with fire, it looked as though this was indeed a Labyrinth made of ice. It was an ice rink, to be exact.

And Madoka… Madoka was skating away on the surface—with what appeared to be a timer over her head!—while Mami shot at what looked like to be mini-Zambonis just hanging from the air.

Homura wanted to scream at Mami for bringing Madoka to such a place—if that was even at all what had happened—but being a seasoned veteran she knew that there was no time for that now. She pulled some AK-47s from her shield—that were much burlier than she was used to, but that she thought could do well to bang against some of the Zambonis if it came down to it—and used them to begin shooting exactly where Mami was trapped.

She thought it was all going well—for the truck-like Familiars also seemed to be made out of fabric, and that was easy to deal with and kill—but she was hefted into the air by a ribbon around her leg then, and for the first time she could remember doing in a long time, Homura let out a bloodcurdling scream.

It was just that the string was so _tight_ around her ankle, that it felt as though the damned thing was being torn off: a sudden violation that Homura had had no time to mentally prepare herself for at all.

“Tomoe Mami!” Homura screamed, as she started to be bounced up and down like a bungee jumper would be.

Meanwhile, Madoka was now having to skate around what looked to be two pinball flippers that were desperately trying to destroy her (she’d only just escaped from Kyoko’s arms, who had seemed to be trying to stop Madoka from being a pawn altogether).

At the arms trying their damnest to harm her beloved, while she could do absolutely nothing, Homura snarled.

“Tomoe Mami, stop this insanity already, and let me down! We can kill this Witch easier, and with no one getting hurt, if you-”

Mami glared at her, from where she was stationed above her, trying to destroy what looked like some sort of ice castle at the very top of the room, no doubt the Witch herself, and it was only then that Homura noted that Mami was also being held captive by a string, ironically, and that she herself was also a victim of this twisted game.

“Homura-chan, listen! I _have_ to skate, and keep up a good score! If I don’t, then the obstacles for you guys will just get harder, and the Witch will get away. Trust me!”

“No, Madoka! It’s too dangerous!” And it really was. Homura loved Madoka, but she knew firsthand that until she Contracted, she was never the most… graceful person in the world.

To imagine her keeping up with this Witch’s demands was absolutely preposterous, and Homura knew that if she displeased it she’d be killed immediately, probably even more thoroughly than they themselves would.

Homura wasn’t about to go down without a fight, but she also wasn’t averse to laying down her life—and all the others’—for Madoka here right now.

“Sakura Kyoko, grab her and force her out of here instantly! We- we can still fight! But having Madoka fight to protect _us_ is insane. She’s innocent! We’re not! Save her!”

Just as Homura said this, she was lifted upward—as she suddenly got the brilliant idea to shoot at the ice beneath them all, because maybe that would end this Witch’s sick idea of fun, while Kyoko tried to wrestle with a now distracted and more vulnerable Madoka to get her out—and she saw the face of the actual Witch: the Abominable Snowman, as it were, seeming about to eat her.

The timer above Madoka’s head was flickering on and off, Homura could see, and the moments when it was there the beast seemed more docile… When it wasn’t, she was being pulled closer and closer to its mouth, that she was also now shooting at.

“Homura-chan, trust me! I… I came here because I remembered figure skating with Mami-san in a dream. Trust me!”

“Trust her, Akemi-san!” Mami agreed, as she finally found a way to escape from the monster herself, and was now rocketing downwards—one of her ribbons extended outward—to where Madoka was.

And now… now Madoka seemed to be diving to where Mami was placing her ribbons on the ice. Maybe otherwise the glass had been booby trapped, but with Mami’s ribbons there… maybe it nullified the effect of that, and still kept the timer above Madoka’s head going?

The way that Madoka was moving now was absolutely beautiful. She’d been wearing tennis shoes during this whole charade, not ice skates, so they had kept her from sliding as much as she might have otherwise. And now that she was stepping onto ribbons instead of the ice itself, she was even more surefooted.

Tomoe Mami and Madoka had come up with an exquisite dance, where Madoka leaped, spun—and sometimes fell by accident, in a sort of tuck roll, but so far Mami was doing a good job of helping her up from that, and keeping her from touching the ice—and even sometimes cartwheeled, and it was beyond lovely.

During a better circumstance, Homura had no doubt that the two of them would conquer this step and give the Witch what it wanted, defeating it with flying colors.

But she was too focused on the times where Madoka looked like she was about to lose her footing, and that even Mami was just barely saving her from.

And now… and now Homura was having a spear of ice injected into her foot, and she couldn’t take it anymore!

She was going- she was going to end this now, damnit, and save them all by doing so!

Mami must have realized what she was getting at right away, because she screamed at the top of her lungs, “Akemi-san, no!”, as she began leaping back upwards again, but Homura wasn’t waiting.

She made sure that she’d numbed herself to all feeling, shot her own foot off to get it loose from the otherwise infallible ribbon—she could use magic to fix it later—and as she fell, she emptied some bullets and even some of her magic into the Abominable Snowman’s mouth.

It began exploding from the inside just as the Witch Charlotte often did, and it was a welcoming sight to Homura.

…Then it ended up going to hell in a handbasket.

From off to the right, a door opened—and if the Witch was still trying to keep up the image of an ice skating rink, perhaps it was the area where people put their skates on just before they entered the arena—and Momoe Nagisa was there, holding a cheesecake in one hand.

For having broken the rules of the game that Madoka had been in—that looked as though it had been meant for freeing the hostages—the Witch used the last of its energy to send a beam of ice Nagisa’s way.

There was an explosion, something splattered everywhere, and though Homura prayed that it was the cake, she didn’t think that that was the case.

Mami screamed, and almost seeming hysterical now as she sobbed, she grabbed her own Soul Gem in hand—almost looking like she was about to crush it.

“Wh-why, Homura-chan?! Why’d you do that?! Why couldn’t you have trusted me?!”

As it happened, the limping girl had no answer to Madoka’s question, as she angrily removed her red ribbons from her hair and put in some blue ones, oddly reminding Homura of something…

Homura had asked herself the same thing about her new stance on Madoka, and how she thought she was weak, long ago, and this time her underestimating her had cost them greatly.

Kyubey, meanwhile, finally made his appearance onto the scene and closed his eyes. He was feigning much, but Homura had learned long ago that that particular look on his face meant delightfulness.

And for it, she almost began crying herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I’m sorry that I left you guys hanging for so long! I actually have an excuse, though! 
> 
> I’d lost this chapter, and I wasn’t about to rewrite all of this, so I was kind of up a creak without a paddle.
> 
> Fortunately I found it, though, and now updates should be happening in a timely fashion now, like I’d originally intended.
> 
> Sorry for any inconvenience, and thank you guys for understanding!
> 
> Hope you’re all enjoying; thanks for reading!
> 
> P.S. I was editing this with two cats sometimes trying to walk on my laptop. I don’t THINK there are any mistakes, but if I’m wrong and I’ve missed something huge (like me maybe having accidentally deleted a paragraph, and therefore putting two together that have no segue into each other), let me know!:D
> 
> Edit: Oh, and as for Kyoko’s nicknames for people, you can try and figure out why she’s calling people those particular names for yourselves:) I know why she is, of course, but I think it might be more fun if you guys came up with your own reasons (unless you really want to know). LOL.


	3. Finding a Light at the End of the Tunnel, Perhaps

**Madoka’s PoV**

Madoka didn’t go home right after the disaster that had happened with Momoe Nagisa.

In fact, she was trying not to think about Nagisa in general, as she walked downtown towards a gaming shop that she knew had old RPGs.

She hadn’t known the girl at all—though the way she had dyed her hair white, and wore contacts that made her eyes multi-colored had spoken to Madoka of a vibrant soul—but she’d still taken her death relatively hard, and that was why…

That was why she needed a distraction. Sayaka and Hitomi weren’t around right now—Madoka thought that they’d gone on some sort of expedition—and so she was looking forward to being a good consumer more than anything else right now.

Eventually—as she’d walked so much, that she thought her knees might give out and scrape on the sidewalk beneath her—Madoka reached her destination.

She opened the rectangular, clear door before her and stepped into the building.

She had to walk through a little bricked hallway until it emptied out into one massive and open room, but finally as she did so, Madoka could see an array of light, and video game consoles existing before her from a bygone era.

Walking up to the main counter, Madoka prepared to ask the owner if they could put “Final Fantasy XIII-2” for the third PlayStation in for her, when she ended up noticing that someone surprising was in the “Past Games Are Preferred” store.

“Kyosuke-kun?!” Madoka called out, suddenly very glad to see her fellow classmate in the vicinity with her.

So she couldn’t see Sayaka right now, but maybe this was the next best thing! It was either stay here and spend time with Kyosuke, or go home and get hounded by Kyubey to make a Contract for Momoe-san, she thought.

It was clear from the expression he was wearing on his face that Kyosuke was surprised to see Madoka.

She supposed that, even now, most people assumed that all gamers were boys.

He quickly hid it, though, which Madoka was glad for.

He, after all, could’ve been talking about how she’d been coloring so much lately, that he thought she’d prefer art games over JRPGs.

“Madoka-chan! What are you- what are you doing here?! It’s good to see you, of course. Especially since Sayaka and Hitomi are away for the moment, but… I thought you were usually in and studying for the night by now.”

 _I did, too_ , Madoka thought. _Until my entire world ended up getting turned upside down._

“I’m here to play, and maybe buy, Final Fantasy XIII-2,” she explained, as she saw the scruffy owner eavesdropping on their conversation, to see if she’d be a paying customer or not.

And also for Kyosuke, so that he could understand she’d come for that game recognition thing she’d heard about in the paper.

“I… I was hoping I could maybe even play ‘Requiem of the Goddess’, if you guys have that DLC. I’ve never played it before myself, you see, and I know… I know you guys said you were going to have a XIII-2 marathon through many different save files for it, so…”

Suddenly, Madoka found herself feeling very shy and uncertain, clutching onto her schoolbag as she pondered if maybe this had been a mistake.

But Kyosuke quickly recovered, and told her what a great idea he thought it was, as he hinted to the store owner that he also wanted to play alongside Madoka.

“If… if you don’t mind, I mean. It’s not that I doubt you, Kaname-san. But I’ve heard that that ending has a different battle system from before, so maybe we can help each other out. I… I haven’t seen the scene from that old game, either.”

Madoka grinned at that, and told Kyosuke that she’d love to have his help in the game. Sayaka had always looked out for her in the past, after all, so maybe this would be some sort of evolution of that?

She watched as the start of the game finally lit up the screen before her, and she handed Kyosuke the controller to hold during the cutscene:

She wanted him to have it for some time, after all, as she was pretty sure that he’d be handing it back to her any moment, so that she could beat the boss for him. So best let him have it at least during that one moment, when Lightning was monologuing, Madoka thought.

Madoka was starting to feel slightly better now, as she let the voice of Sakamoto Maaya wash over her.

She closed her eyes, and focused on the here and now—something as simple and consistent as video games in this troubling time—and found that she was glad she wasn’t alone.

Finally, Kyosuke’s voice ended up breaking her trance and pulling Madoka back to reality, and it was done through a compliment.

Madoka was starting to like Kyosuke more and more.

“Err… here, Madoka-chan. Do you wanna try? I died on my first attempt. I guess… I guess I never played this series enough with my parents. But you know the paradigm system better than me, right?”

Madoka kindly took the black controller out of Kyosuke’s hand then, and deigned to assist him:

It took a lot of courage to admit that you weren’t the best at a certain game, and that someone else should lead it so that you could just enjoy the scenes—something that Madoka knew well from past experiences herself.

Smiling, she simply said, “I don’t remember the system that well. Especially since XIII-2’s changed from XIII’s a bit, but… But I find that if you focus on ‘Paladin’ a lot in any game, you’ll be fine. Hehe… What?”

The rose-haired girl instantly cut herself off, when she noticed that the girl “Serah” had suddenly appeared on the screen, and that her eyes were glowing gold with the “Sign of Etro” appearing in them: a sign that always resulted in the death of the Seeress.

Madoka had forgotten about that part of the story, and she suddenly found herself feeling clammy and just downright awful, because she’d cared about the character of Serah very greatly.

And her death spoke to Madoka about things she very much didn’t want to focus on right now.

“Those are really cute blue ribbons you’re wearing, Madoka-chan,” Kyosuke interrupted the girl’s train of thought, for which she could’ve kissed him for. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wearing blue ribbons before. Are you doing so for Sayaka, maybe?”

“Mm-hmm. I find that I miss her quite a lot, so when my mom recently ended up winning these at work, it was perfect for me. I miss Sayaka a lot… And I guess I just wanted a break from the red that I’ve been wearing lately. Red… Red can be such a terrible color, don’t you think?”

Kyosuke nodded, skillfully stealing the controller from Madoka when he undoubtedly noticed how distracted she was, and that he should take over in the playing—lest they both die and not get to see the conclusion to this true ending.

“That’s a good point, Madoka-chan. Red a lot of times is paired with black to represent evil, isn’t it? Not that I think of that when you wear your red ribbons, though! You can start wearing them again if you’d like to, but I think blue’s a good change for you, is all.”

And as if to prove Kyosuke’s point, Caius Ballad—the villain of the game—appeared on the screen with his massive violet sword in that moment, though it almost seemed to flash more red, and Madoka found it in her to give him her answer.

“Yeah… I think I might stay away from red for a while and maybe stick with blue. Or with green, for Hitomi-chan. Green probably looks better with me being a fall, anyway.”

 _And besides… As much as I like the red Sakura Kyoko, who tried to help me in that Witch’s Labyrinth… I also can’t forgive_ her _, either. It’s clear- It’s clear that she’s working with Homura-chan. And Homura-chan ended up leading that girl to her death, all because… All because she wouldn’t listen to me._

The two of them began talking so much, that Madoka almost didn’t even notice when Kyosuke ended up getting to the end of the level.

No, at that moment she was more focused on standing closer to the console in the middle of the room and the TV there—as the shop owner seemed kind of miffed that they were talking through the whole game instead of focusing on it—like they were supposed to be doing.

For that reason, Madoka tried to make it look like that this Square Enix title was the most important thing in her life (and right now, it oddly kind of was) and truly focus on the ending that Kyosuke had worked to get, while she’d been distracted about Magical Girls.

“Why are you… Why are you crying, Madoka-chan?” Kyosuke ended up asking her part way through what was unfolding, and Madoka was surprised to find that she was doing exactly that.

The hipster owner, who had seemed about to yell at them before, was also crying. So maybe that was why he didn’t seem upset that they were now talking over this part of the game now? Who _wouldn’t_ discuss this emotional part of it all?

“I just… I think it’s really sweet that Serah gets to talk to Lightning one last time, and tell her that she knew her fate and didn’t regret it for even a moment. I hope in the sequel, that I haven’t played yet, that Lightning remembers Serah just as well as she asked her to here.”

And when the teaser for “Lightning Returns” played on the screen, Kyosuke nudged Madoka, to no doubt hint at her that he thought she was right.

Leaving the store in much better spirits than she’d been in upon entering it, Madoka held her new purchase of “Final Fantasy XIII-2”—and all its story DLC codes—close to her chest.

She’d missed this old game, so she was glad to have it again. And now with even all the bonus content she hadn’t had before!

If she got home and found she couldn’t sleep tonight, she’d just power the game up and play it quietly until school the next morning.

And as she ended up doing exactly that, she had a lot to talk to Kyosuke about when it came to the Coliseum of the game!

**Homura’s PoV**

Homura didn’t exactly go back inside her own apartment soon after Momoe Nagisa’s untimely death.

Instead, she had ended up following Mami (though perhaps it had been nonsense to do so, since she probably had been able to sense Homura’s magic, and thus had been acting the whole time that she saw her), because she couldn’t get over how unaffected the girl was acting about Nagisa’s death… After nearly destroying her Soul Gem earlier, that was. She’d clearly been upset then.

Homura fashioned the idea to herself that maybe Mami and Nagisa just hadn’t been that close this timeline, but that didn’t seem quite right to her.

Mami latched onto people far too much and far too fast, since she hated the alternative of being alone so very much.

There was also the possibility that she was just numb now, or had used her magic to shut off the pain, but in all the parallel worlds she’d effected, Homura didn’t ever remember Tomoe Mami succumbing to that the way that Miki Sayaka so often did.

And so… Well, to be honest, she had mostly wasted time that she could’ve been using to make sure that Madoka was okay, she knew (if she ever had to sit through Mami making three cups of tea for herself again, Homura thought that she herself might end up destroying the girl’s Soul Gem), but she also came across the knowledge that Mami seemed very… invested in the child Magical Girls this time around.

Usually Chitose Yuma was Kyoko’s responsibility, but Mami had written a note to herself—upon coming home—to keep a better eye out for that Magical Girl.

So with that information in mind, Homura finally found something worthwhile for the night (it _was_ odd that Yuma hadn’t been at the last Witch fight, actually), and headed back towards her prison.

Going to her apartment… ended up being a mistake, though. Once there, Homura could no longer hide from what had just happened—the casualty she’d caused—and just how terrible she was at all of this.

She found her sanity trying to fall apart on her again, as she placed a hand into her face and tried to push it back in its proper place, as if that made any sense at all.

But since it was either that, or cry, Homura thought she’d take the unintentionally injuring herself (because her nails were digging into her flesh now, she saw), any day.

She was mostly done with emotions, and she was close to shutting her own off entirely.

Even her ones for Madoka.

But that… That was too much to expect from her. If she did that, then she might give up on saving Madoka entirely, and then…

And then everything she’d done would end up being for nothing, and she’d fall into despair… wouldn’t she?

Homura decided that she couldn’t have that, and so she ended up raiding a military base and trying to figure out where Walpurgisnacht might be, if a new Witch had been in the spot where Charlotte usually was (did that mean new Witches would be in all the old places now, and the old ones would be elsewhere?).

She didn’t sleep at all that night, but it was probably for the best.

She could use magic to keep herself up and attune from her lack of sleep, couldn’t she?

…

At school, Sayaka was oddly back.

And though Homura had thought this would lift Madoka’s spirits like nothing else would, she seemed more intent on passing notes to Kyosuke.

She was also now sporting yellow-green ribbons for a change.

Curious.

Homura remembered Madoka confiding to her in the past that she’d like to have male suitors, but that had yet to ever really happen for her in all of Homura’s attempts.

Now, though, the Magical Girl had to worry that Madoka had finally gotten her wish… Only for it to possibly be something that would get her killed, should Miki Sayaka snap and want to murder people again.

Stopping everything around her—and instantly regretting it, as she felt just how much of her magic it had drained; Homura was determined to rely less on her technique this time—she decided to take a look at just what Madoka and the violin prodigy were writing to each other about.

She needn’t have worried.

It looked as though the two of them were just talking about finally playing the old game “Lightning Returns” for the first time, and their theories on it.

It was actually rather sweet, though Homura thought fearfully that it could lead to some trouble down the line.

“Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII”… it was something that Homura had never actually played before, and neither knew anything about (just that a lot of people back in the day had hated it). 

Her interest was kind of piqued now, but she knew that she would have to leave thoughts like this to when Walpurgisnacht was finally defeated…

If that were to ever happen.

Restarting the clock, Homura found herself listening in on the conversation that Sayaka and Madoka were now having before class started.

Apparently Sayaka and Hitomi hadn’t left on their adventure yet, because Hitomi had woken up sick this morning. For that reason, the trip was postponed for a day and Sayaka had decided she might as well go to school—and leave Hitomi to rest—instead of continuing to camp out at her house, feeling bored all day.

“We’re looking for some really special diamonds, Madoka: A color that’s the rarest of them all… Though maybe more rock-like is the best way to put it… But anyway, we’re going to find as many as we can and put them together. You wanna join us?”

There were a few things in Sayaka’s question that had Homura suspicious, though she couldn’t exactly put her finger on why.

Perhaps the weirdest thing was that Miki Sayaka was _still_ wearing a brooch on her bow, and now leaning into Madoka so that it slightly brushed against her.

If Sayaka was trying to glorify Magical Girls through “Sailor Moon”, or something like that—when Homura herself had earlier tried to use it as an example to keep Madoka away _from_ them—Homura was going to kill her.

Speaking of which, Homura thought that it was probably about time that she had a conversation with the rookie.

Getting up from her seat—and making sure that the legs of the chair screeched on the linoleum, as she was now attempting to intimidate Madoka and Sayaka again—Homura made a show of walking over to the two girls, flipping her hair as she did so, and when she finally reached her destination towards the back of the room, said, “Miki Sayaka I’d like to have a discussion with you if you don’t object. Would you go to the roof with me to speak there?”

Madoka looked between the two of them confusedly. And since Homura had resulted in getting Nagisa killed the night before, she suspected that Madoka wouldn’t want Sayaka to go anywhere near her.

But surprising both of them, Sayaka winked at Madoka and quickly reassured her, “It’s fine, Madoka. I am a new Magical Girl, after all, and Transfer Student here is a veteran. Maybe she wants to give me the official Magical Girl handbook or something. Ehehe. I’ll be back sooner than class starts, you’ll see!”

“Sayaka-chan…” Madoka said a bit brokenly then. And Homura was almost certain that she’d tell her to “be careful, then”, and if she did, Homura was almost certain that she’d go home and cut herself. “This isn’t- this isn’t just so you can get away from Yuka, is it?”

Yuka! Homura had completely forgotten about her! A girl that Miki Sayaka and Shizuki Hitomi had talked about on more than one occasion.

Sayaka had never really liked her, for she thought that she was a giant question mark who had trouble understanding the simplest instructions. And then when she realized she’d missed something, she’d “get all whiny”, as Sayaka put it.

Homura had some small sympathy for the girl, but she also understood why Sayaka didn’t like her.

…Especially- especially since some of Sayaka and Hitomi’s pasts before had driven the girl over the edge, and then resulted in making Sayaka turn into a Witch out of guilt.

Homura hated Yuka for that, the way that she usually hated Hitomi for making a precarious situation even worse.

So if Madoka was seriously worried about that, she needed to get over it and understand that Sayaka and Yuka _were_ better kept apart.

In fact, Homura was about to cut-in and tell Madoka just that, but Sayaka beat her to the punch.

“What?! Don’t be silly, Madoka! I just want to show Transfer Student how we should all wear ‘Charmixes’, like I am. I know we really can’t tell everyone the truth… But since we’re Allies of Justice, we could at least cosplay the part, right?”

“’Charmixes’, so that’s what that’s supposed to be.” So Miki Sayaka wasn’t attempting to replicate Sailor Moon’s transformation device at all.

Instead, she was pretending she had a “Charmix” like the Winx Club got: small parts that got added to each fairy’s outfit when they met a certain requirement and got stronger.

Homura wondered, then, if Sayaka was trying to hint that she’d learned something new herself again:

Her healing magic, perhaps? If so, Homura could understand why the new, innocent Magical Girl would want to celebrate that.

She hated that it was probably giving Madoka the wrong impression, though…

Then again, the way that Madoka was now looking at Sayaka made Homura think that her best friend had never seen that Italian show about magical girls at all.

Perhaps they were in the clear, then, with Sayaka glorifying Magical Girls even _moreso_ , if it just went over Madoka’s head.

But back to Sayaka trying to make it known that she was stronger… Maybe that was how she’d been able to conceal her magical identity that first day, too. Perhaps Kyoko had taught it to her.

Suddenly having lost complete interest in Sayaka, Homura interrupted whatever else she was about to say to Madoka by patting the bluenette on the arm. “Yes, yes. This… Charmix thing is an interesting idea. I’ll look into dressing up like that myself. But now I’m thinking we shouldn’t talk right now after all, for class is about to start, and… What kind of ‘Ally of Justice’ is late for class?

“Err… and you _should_ stay away from Yuka, by the way.”

And with that, Homura left the two girls stunned, went back to her desk, and prepared to learn once again why Saotome sensei’s boyfriend was plain horrendous.

…Until Homura saw Madoka’s father, Kaname Tomohisa, coming into the room. He was carrying a Bento for Madoka, it looked like, which…

Which wasn’t too out there. Madoka had forgotten her lunch in the past, after all—and Homura could even see that she was scratching the back of her head embarrassedly now, and that was something Homura had seen a lot in this kind of situation—but there was also something off about it.

When Madoka sprang to her feet to go get her lunch from her papa, the amethyst Magical Girl noticed that Kyubey had been sitting beside Madoka the whole time (unbeknownst to Madoka, it looked like; that was good), but now he was leaping lithely toward Madoka’s dad.

Homura wondered if Kyubey would go as far as to try and hurt Kaname-san, in order to force Madoka into making a Contract.

She prepared to transform and stop such a thing, were it to happen (and Homura would later wonder why Miki Sayaka hadn’t noticed anything, and hadn’t been acting to save her friend’s father), but then something even more strange ended up occurring:

Madoka’s father looked like he could see Kyubey!

Homura breathed deeply—and tried to get a better sense of her bearings, and to figure out if this was reality or not—and chose what to do next.

She was reminded vaguely, as she pulled her Soul Gem out of her ring (just in case), when Miki Sayaka had once asked Madoka if she could forgive anyone that would ever let a Witch go over Tatsuya.

Now Homura found herself wondering if perhaps something like that had ended up happening: not with Tatsuya, of course, but rather Tomohisa, and he’d faced a Witch and for that reason the Incubator had explained itself to him.

And then the real icing came into fruition. After Tomohisa gave the food to his daughter with a delighted look on his face, he began conversing with Kyubey! He even pulled out what looked- what looked to be a Soul Gem?

Homura was in shock, to say the least. And though she’d never heard of such a thing happening (and things the alien species had told her in the past seemed to contradict this very idea) before, it looked as though male Puella Magi now existed! And even old ones, at that!

Would he- Would he try to hurt Madoka? Homura pondered, as she began running towards them—feeling like the world had slipped into slow motion.

Would Magical Men be an enemy of Magical Girls?

Knowing what she did about the fate of all those who made a wish, and just how evil Kyubey was, Homura didn’t doubt it one bit.

…And perhaps Tomoe Mami didn’t, either. Homura could sense her former senpai’s magic getting closer—maybe she sensed the threat and was coming, and longed to take care of it—but Homura couldn’t deal with the possibility of Mami losing it in such a critical moment: she needed to handle it before the unstable girl got here.

And so it was all up to her, then, like it often was. Transforming with a blast of purple light that acted like flames to kindling (and Homura ignored the part of her that wanted to draw out her transformation into a long, dramatic thing, like her old heroes… and like she’d used to do when she actually believed in things), and pulled a gun from her buckler.

She leveled the pistol at Kaname Tomohisa’s Soul Gem (it was on his shirt, of all things: an almost sort of joke to Miki Sayaka wearing a “Charmix” on her own blouse), for she could not have this new anomaly in this loop, thank you very much, and so she prepared to shoot.

Everyone had begun screaming around her. Madoka especially, begging her not to do this, but Homura couldn’t listen to her.

She noted that their teacher, even, seemed to be pulling her arm back to try and get her to stop, but Homura forced it off with the raw strength brimming in her muscles: the strength that only a Magical Girl should have, and Homura had no desire to learn just how strong a Magical Man could be.

She placed her weapon to the man’s forehead, who seemed to be frozen in fear, so that it would at least be a clean and quick shot.

Meanwhile, Madoka seemed to be begging Kyubey to let her make a Contract now.

Not having that, Homura summoned a barrier to lock Madoka within.

She then turned to Kyubey, who seemed about to race to Madoka “Go on, Incubator. Rush to Madoka and make her let her wish. But if you do, I’ll have killed this man in that time. And I get the feeling that you don’t want that, or else you wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of making him, would you have?”

Homura was bluffing. For all she knew, Kyubey didn’t care about Tomohisa at all and had just planned this moment to force Madoka in to making a wish.

…There was also the chance that Madoka could just use her wish to bring the man back, if it came down to it—thus not effecting whatever Kyubey’s plan was at all.

…She could also use her wish to kill her in revenge, Homura thought.

And the look that Madoka was giving her right now, of utmost hatred, told Homura that she might do just that.

And then- then she would never get to save her, would she?

But honestly? Homura didn’t even think she cared anymore. None of this felt real, anyway.

“I’m sorry Kaname-san. Believe it or not, I’m not the cold executioner type. And I’ve always thought fondly of you and your kindness. I also have to thank you for bringing someone into the world as wonderful as Madoka is, and for raising her. But you- You leave me too many questions in this already precarious timeline and I can’t have that. I- I’m sorry. And thank you for inviting me to stay over all those times.”

Homura even had the audacity to bow to him in thanks for that, before she cocked the gun. “But this is for reminding Madoka of how she’d used to want to be a hero that one timeline, and making her make a wish when she otherwise wouldn’t have.”

“Homura-sama, stop!”

Oddly enough, it was that—that name she’d never been called before, by _anyone_ , that pulled the girl from the fog of her mind, and made her stare in horror at just what she’d been about to do.

Nakazawa-kun had wrapped his arms around her from behind, and had his head leaning against her back as he cried, and Homura remembered that he had a crush on her this time, didn’t he?

She also supposed that it made sense that he would be the one calming her, as he was always forced to deal with Saotome-san’s fits.

 _How cliché_ , Homura thought bitterly.

But he had done the trick. He had woken Homura up, and she resisted the urge to go sob in a corner, for finally knowing without a shadow of a doubt that her sanity _was_ gone, and she was perhaps worse than all the things that she faced.

But she- she had no right to cry in front of Madoka, after what she’d almost put her through.

Homura could no longer support herself anymore, she became deadweight in Nakazawa’s arms (had he touched the pressure point on her neck?), and the last thing she heard were his words of, “It’s okay. It’s okay… Whatever’s eating away at you _can_ be figured out, Homura-sama. But this isn’t the way. Please go back to being the nice girl I met on that first day, and let me help you.”

The next thing Homura knew, she was waking up in the hospital (though not the hospital she was in at each restart, she quickly realized, but rather the nurse’s office at school), and she was very highly contemplating suicide.

What had she- just what had she almost done?!

And had Madoka… Had Madoka maybe now made a Contract now to stop her reign of terror?

…

Homura didn’t know how long she laid there, staring at the nurse eagerly—trying to get through by just a gaze that she was better now—but the woman seemed reluctant to let Homura out of her sight.

Not that the Magical Girl could really fault her for that…

Homura knew that she ought to have been outside, preparing for the night ahead—as the school day had to be near over at this point—but she found that she couldn’t even move an inch:

Not even to stop time, which she knew she really could’ve been doing, since she didn’t think she’d even changed back to normal after what had happened.

Instead, she was worried that she herself would hurt Madoka—the worst fate that could ever come to pass at all, surely—and so Homura stared at the yellow paint peeling on the wall, trying to get her mind back in order and to think of better times.

The real problem was that she’d become too focused on Madoka, she thought.

So worried about her best friend’s safety was she, that she’d completely lost herself and hadn’t even realized just how much she could make things worse in harming Madoka _other_ ways.

Perhaps what she really should have been doing now was finding herself again, then.

She remembered a timeline where she’d been out about in the park, close to where Madoka’s family was.

Kyoko had been stalking the area, and Homura had worried that she might try and attack the Kanames (a bitter irony after what she herself had just nearly done, Homura thought).

She had caught up to Kyoko, and when she had told her that Tomohisa, Tatsuya, and Junko were her friend’s family, and that she wouldn’t have them in danger, Kyoko had said something along the lines of, “Sheesh. I’m not that evil.”

And so it appeared that Kyoko had been right. She herself wasn’t, but Homura was.

But that… That wasn’t what she should’ve been focusing on now at all!

Tossing and turning on the bed, and trying to use the pillow to suffocate all the voices talking in her head, Homura recalled that she liked parks and the outdoors.

She’d been starved from the sun during her months in the hospital, so perhaps she just needed to go without, truly enjoy it, and let the Vitamin D soak into her skin.

If she could maybe even eat some food atop the side of a fountain, or something of the sort—the sound of trickling water always being something to help drown out her anxiety—then she certainly wouldn’t complain, either.

It was about the time that Homura was thinking about trying to sneak out the window to go sit on the roof, at the very least, that Tomoe Mami entered the room.

The nurse came flying at her in a panic, and Homura could tell that she was worried for the safety of the blonde schoolgirl around “the psycho”, but Mami had her Soul Gem out.

And faster than Homura could blink, Mami had used her magic to force the elderly woman to think that everything was okay, and to even finally smile at Homura.

Normally, the time traveler would have been demanding answers from Mami at this point—for she hadn’t been aware that she knew that they could actually learn to do anything with their magic, if they had enough Grief Seeds to deal with the cost of it—but right now she was trying not to be angry and judgmental, so she let it go.

Besides, Mami was the Magical Girl who had used to spend all of her time practicing her craft and saving innocents.

She had also learned how to transfigure her ribbons into almost anything, and to be able to perform true miracles with them, so maybe it did make sense.

“I came to spring you from here, Akemi-san. You’re no longer trapped. And I… With the help of Sakura-san—and even the new-to-magic-Miki-san—changed most everyone’s memories, so they won’t recall what you did. All that I ask for now, is that you take a walk with me.”

Well, this was just terrific. Three Magical Girls, using power such as that, would probably be turning into Witches soon.

The whole thing was her own fault, of course, but Homura couldn’t get over just how badly things had gotten so quickly.

Maybe… maybe if nothing else, if the four of them ended up becoming Witches, maybe Yuma would end up protecting Madoka, for Homura’s having saved her.

She could only hope.

Once the two of them were in the hall that Homura usually waited to go through with Madoka first—something that hadn’t occurred in this attempt at all, and though Homura desperately wished that it still would somehow… she didn’t foster any illusions that Madoka would want to be around her ever again—she found herself asking, “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me? Certainly you see me as a liability, in a town already filled to the brim with Magical Girls, so why are you wasting your breath and energy on me at all?”

Homura perhaps wondered if this was some ploy of Mami’s—and all the others… maybe even Madoka’s—to lull her into a state of calm, so that they could surprise her and truly torture her, when they finally chose to kill her after their feigned niceness.

And yet… Mami was actually somewhat laughing now, as she turned to face Homura—her shoes almost sliding on the slick floor, and making her fall over—in a way that Homura had done to Madoka in what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Do not misunderstand, Akemi-san. You are on… probation, I would call it. But at the same time, I won’t deny that we need you. I’ve… I’ve never seen someone be able to create blasts such as you do, and… Well, umm… Walpurgisnacht is coming very shortly, isn’t it? And we could use you on our squad.”

There was something about the way that Mami said “blasts” that Homura didn’t quite understand.

It also made little sense to her how Mami even knew that she had that kind of magical ability, when she was pretty damn sure she’d yet to see her fire at something with it yet.

But maybe in finally realizing just all that she was capable of with her own magic, it wasn’t too big a jump for Tomoe Mami to see that other girls could do all that, too?

“Wal… Walpurgisnacht?!” Homura stuttered, for no one ever knew about that before it was too late. “How do you know about her, Tomoe-san? I know that you and Sakura-san once promised to fight her together, so did you finally realize what’s happening here and chose to honor that pact?”

“Let’s keep walking, Akemi-san,” Mami said, not answering. “Kaname-san should be getting out of class now, and after what you did today, I don’t want her running into you in this hallway, or seeing you through the glass window on her side of the building.”

And so Homura _did_ keep walking, getting closer to the exit of the building, and trying to scuff her black shoes against the ground, so that maybe Madoka would realize she _had_ come down this way and find her.

“But to answer your question,” Mami continued on, choosing to open the small circular door that led to a greenhouse—and to leave the school that way; Homura shouldn’t have been surprised—“I know about Walpurgisnacht because that seems to be the only thing powerful enough to me to give a man a Witch’s Kiss, that makes him act like a Magical Girl and even capable of seeing Kyubey, don’t you agree?”

“So that’s what it was…” Homura muttered to herself, as she took the moment to kneel down in some sunflowers below her: remembering her earlier wish to go outside and be able to find a little bit of herself again there, maybe. “Then I… Then I ruined everything over nothing. How typical. And even if Madoka ends up surviving this time, she’ll never forgive me. How very perfect of me.”

That seemed to put a sort of fury within Tomoe Mami, and suddenly picking Homura up from the ground by the collar of her shirt, she made sure that Homura was looking her in the eye when she told her that, “I also changed Kaname-san Senior’s memory, so he has no idea what almost befell him today! But our subconscious minds have a way of figuring those things out! Now thanks to you, he might fall into despair and kill himself in front of Junko or Tatsuya! Do you really want that for friends’ families? You- you…

“Look, Akemi-san. I understand that you’re under a lot of stress. We all are now, in trying to figure out a way to defeat Walpurgisnacht—and feeling the effects of her—just… just work on keeping yourself together, please?”

And Mami marched off then, pulling a white rose from the ground to perhaps give to Madoka to make her feel better.

Madoka had always liked white and roses, hadn’t she?

Mami left Homura alone in the greenhouse, then—wondering just what she was going to do this time, and feeling about two inches tall.

…

Homura didn’t know what to do after her time with Mami. She was tempted to try and see if all Witches—and maybe even Familiars—were migrating elsewhere, and what that would mean for her, but she found that she was too tired to.

She thought that she definitely owed Madoka an apology, so that should have been the first thing on her list to take care of, but she was afraid to talk to her—afraid that if Madoka saw her approaching her, she’d become rightfully unsure of herself and go to Kyubey for help.

That left Sakura Kyoko and Miki Sayaka, then: two other people on her “team”, that she now needed to thank and perhaps apologize to.

Homura had no idea where Kyoko would be at this time, what with her taking care of Yuma now and all.

But she thought that there was a chance Miki Sayaka was at Tomoe Mami’s house, getting further instruction on her Magical Girl duties, so she’d head there.

Homura was going through that one basement full of descending stares now, that if she traversed it long enough and exited it on the other side, she’d be closer to Mami’s, without having to walk past too many locals.

So, of course, it would be when she wanted to be alone that Kyubey would come and see her.

Have you noticed, Akemi Homura, that the weather in Mitakihara has been very pleasant lately? Well, that was Chitose Yuma’s wish. 

Or something like it, anyway. She asked for things to be “warmer”, actually. And that can be taken many ways: the weather, her sister’s safety, the warm environment in you guys’ classrooms, that now have cubbyholes for art supplies—I’m sure that you noticed that one—and chalkboards instead of your usual smart boards…

“What are you getting at, Incubator?” Homura snarled, picking the creature up by its ears, and feeling tempted to rip one from his head.

…Or she would have if she hadn’t been trying to be more peaceful right now, after what had happened with Madoka’s dad.

“That some sort of bad ‘warmth’ is going to happen to us because of this wish? Because I-”

On the contrary, Akemi Homura. I’ve been known to extend gifts to people through their wishes before. One Maki Kaoru, for instance, one wished for everyone who went to the same soccer match as she had to be healed. She made no wish for herself. But since it was such a simple thing—and she _had_ been in that game she’d made the wish for—I gave her that same magic that she asked wanted for everyone else. I just thought that you should know.

And with that the little clone bounded off, and Homura was forced to watch him while feeling more confused than ever.

It didn’t matter, though: She’d finally made it to Mami’s now, and that was Homura’s main focus.

And sure enough, her main target, one Miki Sayaka, was standing outside the apartment building. She seemed civil enough, but the person she was currently on the other line with certainly wasn’t.

“I think that we should give Homura another chance,” Sayaka was saying, her phone pulled far away from ear, as if she expected the overture from “The Phantom of the Opera” to begin blasting in her ears (Homura knew firsthand just how loud that could be, as she’d once longed to be a ballerina who danced to classical music).

“What she did, Sayaka, was so fucking out of line that I could write a book about it! I don’t wanna see her at all right now, alright?! I mean, god! I’m taking care of Yuma now. And imagine she had been there through all of that! What would I have told her then? That Magical Girls are assassins?! I can’t even-”

Homura winced at Kyoko’s words. Though it wasn’t as if she didn’t deserve much worse.

Sayaka, seeming to finally see Homura, said, “Look. I’ve gotta go. You take Yuma to her dentist appointment, and I’ll take care of things, Kyoko.”

Well, that sounded ominous. Would Sayaka try to kill her again now? Homura wondered.

The fact that they were on a catwalk in a deep darkness seemed to speak loudly of murder to her. She could just imagine her blood lining the place, and Miki Sayaka calling it “justice”, but maybe…

Maybe that would be for the best.

Sighing, Sayaka said simply, “Why don’t we go into Mami-san’s, eh, Transfer Student? We really shouldn’t be having this kinda conversation out here.”

Not knowing what else to do, Homura acquiesced to Sayaka’s request and went back into the charming space that had once thought was more of a home to her than anywhere else.

Mami was in the background, cleaning up a rustic curio cabinet that it looked like she had just bought, but she motioned that Homura and Sayaka could sit down at her dining room table, if they wished to.

Taking off her shoes, and preparing to kneel down in front of said table, Homura thought that if she was going to die, she might as well do so as a respectable Japanese girl.

“Why are you being civil to me, Miki Sayaka?” Homura finally found it within herself to ask, eating a piece of caramel cheesecake as she did so.

It wasn’t so much that Homura was pretending to be aloof anymore, but that she wanted to enjoy what may very well end up being her last dessert.

And as it was, she probably hadn’t been eating enough at all lately.

“You don’t seem like a… forgiving sort either, if every betrayed, Miki Sayaka.”

Sayaka threw her arms up into the air then, her sapphire Soul Gem glowing in the sharp yellow light of the lamp as she did so.

Homura had never really stopped to think how pretty the other girls’ Gems were before...

Madoka’s rose quartz one, she had, as Homura’d had to shoot it enough times to fully understand what the loss of it meant…

But why hadn’t she stopped to consider the same thing for the other girls? She must have been the most selfish person in the world.

“I don’t know, Transfer Student,” Sayaka finally settled on. “Maybe it’s because we were having a semi-decent conversation this morning before you went crazy. Maybe it’s because I get the sense that you’re suffering a lot, and really can’t be blamed for all that you do. Maybe I’m still figuring out all of this Witch nonsense, and think there’s a real possibility that you could’ve had a Witch’s Kiss to make you act like that, or somethin’.

“In any case, I don’t want you getting all suicidal on me. So before I go to leave with Hitomi, I wanted you to know that you have _my_ forgiveness, at least.”  

Homura felt like weeping. For so many years now, she’d hated Sayaka with a burning passion—had often times wished her dead—and really only cared about her at all because of Madoka.

But now… Now Homura had to wonder if she had had a kind heart all along—and that she herself just hadn’t been acting right to access it—and if she had made a mistake in taking her off the “save” list.

After all, Sayaka was showing her the most goodness today out of anyone, after she’d behaved like a true serial killer this time around.

Mami had been forgiving in her own right; Kyoko seemed hesitant to do so, and Homura really doubted that Madoka would be willing to look past what she’d tried to do: she’d probably finally done the one thing that would make Madoka even slightly caring about her an impossibility—yay, her—but at least Sayaka was being a god sent.

Homura thought about asking Sayaka if she wouldn’t be around for Walpurgisnacht, if she was really leaving with Hitomi—something that would make their chances of winning even less now—but she bit back the words.

“You should know that Madoka’s coming over later, Homura. Even I don’t know if that’s a good idea. But Madoka is Madoka, so I thought we’d at least try it. I told her that you invited _her_ over to talk, so that at least will be a step in the right direction.”

 _Yes, because lying is always the best option,_ Homura thought. But knowing that that would make her a hypocrite, and that she was really just nervous about seeing Madoka, she held back in vocalizing her anxiety. 

“What is Tomoe Mami doing with that lightsaber?” Homura asked suddenly, seeing the bizarre picture of said girl holding onto of those old toys, and then putting it in some sort of storage space above her.

Maybe it was something she’d had as a child, and she was now feeling nostalgic and so putting it somewhere safe for the memory of her parents?

Homura wished that she could relate to the wish of wanting to keep stuff about her parents close to her, honestly.

“Who knows?” Sayaka asked then, seeming not at all as confused by it as Homura was. She stretched her arms out in front of her, and seemed about to try and take a nap with her head resting right on the table.

For that very reason, Homura found herself wondering if what Sayaka had been drinking earlier (while she’d been eating cheesecake) was actually alcohol—or even just milk—and if so, she could understand why she’d be tired now, and so wanted her perhaps new friend to be able to sleep, but something in her peripheral vision made that an impossibility.

“No way.”

Down on the parking lot beneath the apartment complex, there was some sort of Familiar there.

But what was odd about it was that it was exactly out of an anime Homura had watched a lot as a little girl: “Tenchi Universe”.

The Familiar had on a sky blue colored hakama, tan sandals over some unsightly bright white socks, and from the torso up, the rest of his image was completely obscured.

The Familiar also held a sword in hand, that looked like it was ripped from a tree more than anything else.

It didn’t seem to be working—as no blade was extending from any of the prongs that made up “The Master Key”, like one was supposed to—and the three red gems on it seemed to have dulled considerably.

And yet there was no denying that it was, in fact, supposed to be Yosho from that anime, carrying the sword “Tenchi”.

Had some girl made some sort of wish about Tenchi, and one of the Familiars from their Labyrinth—perhaps the most powerful one—just happened to find its way here?

What were the chances?

Deciding that she wasn’t going to have Tomoe Mami in any danger, though—especially if it would just be her, maybe Kyoko, and perhaps Yuma and herself fighting Walpurgisnacht—Homura actually told Sayaka what she was about to do, changed into her Magical Girl ensemble again (it felt good knowing that this time she’d be using her powers for good, as compared to the evil she’d nearly wrought just some hours ago), and pressed the keys on the panel that opened up Mami’s massive picture window and leapt through it.

To everyone else, Homura assumed she looked like she was flying when she moved like this, but she was rather just freefalling—though she’d long ago stopped flailing around like an idiot when she did so.

She looked like she was in control when she did this, but really she just used her magic to numb the pain that her eventual difficult landing would give her.

Homura actually tried to be strategic as she fell this time, however. If she could perhaps kick the Familiar in the head from this height, maybe she could do massive damage to it before it noticed her and started teleporting away.

That didn’t end up happening.

The Familiar sensed her, and darted away at the last moment, leading Homura to roll sharply to the ground—instead of intercepting her target half-way there—and having to use some magic to get her body to stop from spinning out of control:

She’d just been about to crash through a window of one of those miniature Green cars, and her body rejected the very idea of crashing through the glass, after what she’d done to her foot—that had only just healed—a day ago.

Homura got to her feet shakily, knowing that she was using too much magic already: one to lessen her fall—which didn’t even end up working, and that she had used magic for, anyway—and the other to keep her from crashing into that car.

She was starting to tax out her Gem again—having nearly murdered someone today definitely helping that along—and she had no idea just how good or thorough she’d be in this fight, but she had to try.

 _If I just stop time for a short moment, enough to drop some bombs in this thing’s face, then I should be fine. This shouldn’t be as hard to defeat as a Witch, so I shouldn’t need to stop the clock long. If I time this just right, I’ll keep myself just barely from turning into a Witch_.

And not really having any better ideas than that, Homura ended up doing what she’d just thought of: she stopped the flow of time with her shield—and breathed a sigh of relief, when everything froze around her and took on a monochrome look: she’d _missed_ seeing her own world thus far—and she then moved to take some of the cylindrical bombs from her buckler that were on a timer.

She shoved them into the Familiar’s mouth—that she was just now beginning to see some more of, as she got close to it, and maybe he was even wearing glasses behind his distorted features—and restarted time.

…What she hadn’t been counting on was the Familiar being smart enough to spit them all out—just one of them having gone off inside him, and where flames erupted from that spot, the Familiar grabbed onto Homura so she could feel them—and then it began darting away from her in a pattern that she couldn’t keep up with at all.

Would shooting it be the best bet, then?

The girl pulled out a gun she’d been keeping in her pocket, and tried to aim—ignoring the burns she felt on her left side, and the blisters that were starting to appear there—and she was reminded irritably of how some of her friends (Madoka, Sayaka, and Hitomi) had once complained, in their innocence of not knowing what was to come, how stupid it was that in movies people always ran from gunners in a straight line.

Well, they’d gotten their wish for something not to do that, hadn’t they? Homura couldn’t get a clear shot, or anticipate the creature’s actions at all!

It was about at that moment that Sayaka appeared on the scene, decked out in her normal azure Magical Girl outfit, except that her gold barrettes hadn’t seemed to change to treble clefs this time, but were just the golden lines they usually were during her day to day life.

“Homura, I don’t think you can fight this guy via far away combat. I can get in there if you want, and sword fight with the guy. Seeing as how he’s carrying a sword, I bet that’s what he wants.”

_Except that I’ve never seen you fight before, so I don’t know how you’ll handle yourself. But… I guess if this protects Tomoe-san and me, so that we can protect Madoka, it will be worth it. And if something untoward happens to you, I guess that we have Chitose Yuma to take your place as healer now._

“Go for it, Miki-san!” Homura insisted, adopting the best honorific that she could use with the girl’s last name, so that the girl would maybe realize that she had come to care about her—and that she didn’t _want_ anything bad to happen—but since this was also the duty of Magical Girls, she wasn’t going to stop her.

“I… I’m going to see if Tomoe Mami can at least assist me in giving me some ribbons to hang from, so we can see if the Familiar’s really as good at being attacked from above, as it was before, or if it just got lucky that time.”

But they both ended up dropping their intentions when Madoka appeared on the scene.

And good god, did that girl have no self-preservation instincts at all? She was walking towards the broken piece of Labyrinth from the opposite end of the parking lot, so that she was closer to the Familiar than they themselves were, and she was nowhere near Homura or Sayaka so that they could protect her.

Surprisingly, Madoka didn’t look as furious as Homura had expected her to be.

But then again, she had always been glorious in the midst of battle, hadn’t she? More sure and clearheaded than any of them.

It was so obvious that Madoka knew what needed to be done, and was preparing to act on it, and so she was ignoring her personal feelings and doing what was right.

“You two never watched ‘Tenchi Muyo’, did you?” Madoka asked, as if such a question made all the sense in the world in this moment, and that if they could figure out the answer, too, that they could easily end this fight.

“That’s the true canon. And… whoever made the wish, that this guy broke off, from had to know that: That the Master Key ends up going to, the pretty normal, Tenchi Masaki.

“So to win this fight here, I think you have to be a normal person—or that it at the very least it will respect a normal person—so please leave this to me.”

And though Homura wanted to protest, she knew that she couldn’t. Not after what had happened to Nagisa just yesterday, and what she had nearly done to Tomohisa today.

Nodding her head with a grimace on her face, Homura told Madoka that it was okay for her to go on…

It didn’t mean, however, that she wouldn’t be keeping a close eye on her, ready to jump in at a moment’s notice.

“Best of luck, Madoka,” Sayaka told her lovingly. “And if you need us, we’ll be right here to keep that creep away from you.”

“Okay!” Madoka answered back, nodding her head and smiling in a chipper manner, though Homura got the sense that she was feeling a lot more afraid than she let on.

And pausing only to take her shoes off, the girl began dancing in a J-pop style, of all things.

This was almost enough for Homura to think that Madoka had no idea what she was doing whatsoever, and that she needed to go keep her safe right now.

But pretty soon, the Familiar was jabbing at Madoka—who skillfully weaved in and out of all his movements, so he never even touched her—and every now and then she’d reach out to try and grab the sword herself.

There seemed to be some sort of blue light radiating around the blade now, in the shape of a funnel, and it looked to Homura that maybe Madoka really was getting close to summoning the weapon “Tenchi” to her person.

But every time she attempted it, the Familiar stepped up its game, moving faster and faster—and becoming more difficult and more difficult to deal with, too—until it ended up at one point slamming the piece of wood onto Madoka’s head so hard, that Homura was honestly surprised that it didn’t knock the girl out.

“Madoka!” she cried her friend’s name in despair.

But Madoka held up a hand—indicating that Homura shouldn’t come over, and so she hesitated—and said, “I’m fine. Really. Let me- let me continue here.”

And reluctantly the two girls let her, but Homura could tell that Sayaka was just as scared for Madoka as she was.

And when it came to a point where the Familiar ended up kicking Madoka in the face—leaving a massive shoe expression on the girl’s cheek, that soon became even more hideous when Madoka’s tears washed over the red surface—Sayaka had apparently seen enough.

“You keep doing what you are, Madoka, but I’m going to help you.” And faster than Homura had ever seen Sayaka move in her life—and that was really saying something, with all the many lives that she’d lived—the blue-haired girl got behind the Familiar, and allowed Madoka to keep dodging its martial arts attempts, and to try and get the sword, but when it stepped too out of line, she jabbed her own sword at its cheeks: Not doing so much that it even turned around to face Sayaka, or called the game “void”—like the Witch with Nagisa had—but she was doing just enough to aid Madoka.

Finally, with sweat dripping from her arms, Madoka was able to reach in and pull the blade away from the villain.

She was awash in a massive white-blue light then—with jagged lines to it, that left Homura thinking that Madoka was being electrocuted, and she began running to her, but Sayaka called her down—it was clear, then, that the sword was choosing Madoka as its true master.

And still being charged with the light, that now seemed to be harming the Familiar from wherever it left Madoka and touched it, she stabbed the Familiar through the heart with a guttural cry.

The silver of the blade finally appearing, and Homura only saw it for a moment before it was sheathed in the Familiar’s breast and both were fading away, but it was an image that Homura would certainly be calling to her mind later.

Sensing that it was over, and that they were finally out of danger, Homura couldn’t hold herself back any longer:

She sped to Madoka, and wrapped the girl in her arms. Madoka didn’t hug her back in the slightest, but it was okay. At least she wasn’t trying to fight her in this close vicinity, either: the girl who would have been her father’s murderer.

“Madoka… Thank you. You defeated that Familiar, and no doubt saved countless lives, including our own. I’m so… I’m so sorry. For _everything_ ,” and though Homura had learned long ago that she couldn’t tell Madoka the truth, she meant so much more than what Madoka knew with that last word.  “I was wrong to ever doubt you, or hurt you. Say you’ll forgive me.”

Madoka laughed, then. And surprising Homura and Sayaka both, she ended up slapping _herself_ on the cheek.

“Ma-Madoka?”

“All day, I’ve been wanting to slap you, Homura-chan, if I’m being honest. And there’s a part of me that still wants to. But… What you did with just trusting me is more than enough for me. Really! I also get the sense that you’ve been fighting so hard, but alone, for so long. And that maybe- maybe even I’m part of the reason you went crazy today. So I’ll slap _myself_ for that, at least, and call it a day.”

As Homura pulled away from Madoka, she was just about to tell her how nothing about her state was her fault at all—quite the contrary, really—but Sayaka ended up interrupting that thought:

“S-s-snow… Snow is falling down on us now. Guys, where do you think it’s coming from?”

Horrified, Homura remembered Kyubey’s words from earlier that day: that Yuma had wished for warm things, and going along with that… cold snow like this should’ve been impossible, then, otherwise it contradicted her wish, and Sayaka seemed to understand that.

Madoka—clearly not seeing the bigger picture and not knowing about Yuma’s wish—said, “Snow is snow, guys. Why are we worrying about it? I’m kind of glad for it, personally. I think we deserve it after the victory we just had. And snow… Snow acts to clean everything and make it new, y’know?”

But Madoka quickly seemed to take back her own statement, and to turn a terrified glance up to the sky, when she noticed that that wasn’t the only thing falling from there.

“Is that-” Homura choked—only able to think of one thing, when what looked like purple globs began raining down on them from overhead—“is that bits of a grape ICEE? Like I wanted that day so long ago, but I chose strawberry instead, in order to be like Madoka?”

“No, Homura,” Sayaka answered. A serious sound to her voice that had both Madoka and Homura turning to face her.

She had an unreadable look on her face that Homura couldn’t make out for the life of her.

“I think… I think it’s closer to glass than anything else; I’ve… I’ve gotta go.”

And using a considerable amount of magic, Sayaka seemed to find a way to teleport, and vanished swiftly into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was trying something with Kyoko’s accent last chapter, that I don’t think really worked, so I’m going to drop it.
> 
> Basically, IIRC, during the first part of “The Different Story” she didn’t use slang at all. It wasn’t until after she lost her family that she began doing that—almost as if she were trying to be the “uncivilized witch” her dad had thought her to be.
> 
> So last chapter, there were times where Kyoko was talking almost normally—and parts where you could almost not understand what she was saying, she was trying so hard to “be bad”. 
> 
> It was supposed to indicate that Kyoko kind of didn’t know who to be then. 
> 
> She was somewhat changing for the better, yes (as she always does in that month), but at the same time she wasn’t entirely ready for that, and it showed.
> 
> That was what I was going for, but I don’t think it came across at all, so from now on Kyoko’s just going to talk mostly normally, with only the slightest bit of an accent.
> 
> Oh, and that thing about Tomohisa sort of reminding Madoka that she wanted to be a super hero, that’s based on the scene from the PSP game “Tatsuya, Super Hero”:) Blick Winkel has translated it on YouTube as “Madoka Portable – Tatsuya, Super Hero”, so check it out;)
> 
> That same user also translated the “Madoka Portable – Kyoko Hates Crybabies” that I was also eluding to in this chapter (when I mentioned that in the past that Kyoko had spied on Tomohisa and Tatsuya, at the park and Homura didn’t know how to feel about that). LOL.
> 
> Thanks for reading, guys! See you all next time! Bye!
> 
> Edit: Oh, and “Yuka” is a girl in the actual anime (though I don’t know if I spelled her name right; she’s talked about in episode four, btw). And most of the things I said about her—mainly how Sayaka and Hitomi talk about her behind her back, kind of—is true.
> 
> And if you guys are wondering why I’m acting like things like “Final Fantasy XIII-2” are so ancient, it’s because that you can tell by the aesthetics of the anime that it’s supposed to take place in our near future. So things that are new to us wouldn’t be new to the Madoka characters. And things that are old to us would be even moreso for them! LOL.


	4. Red's Not the Color that Travels the Farthest; Orange Is

**Madoka’s PoV**

Madoka was on her computer, looking for some sporks to buy online for Tatsuya. Her dear little brother always ended up dropping peas on the floor when he tried to get them up off his plate himself, after all.

And while Madoka supposed she could have blamed Tatsuya’s form for this—maybe he just wasn’t good at handling forks yet—she actually sort of blamed the utensils they had in the house instead.

Madoka was no expert, but she thought if the forks were sharp enough, or something, her baby brother would probably be spearing food like a pro.

In fact, Madoka could even imagine him as a fisherman, using a trident to catch things with when he grew up, somewhat.

And it was for that reason she was trying to find the nifty spoons/forks they’d had when she was in elementary school, that got the job done pretty well (before the city had chosen to throw those out, and to favor “safer ones” instead).

So far she wasn’t having much luck, but Madoka wasn’t giving up!

Especially since the snowfall, that was still falling down outside, was making her feel all kinds of adventurous. If they could get weird mountain majesty colored flakes outside Mitakihara, then who knew what else this cool world was capable of?!

Madoka had some hot chocolate, she had her determination, and so she was searching, searching, searching.

But as she was Googling things, she ended up getting a result she wasn’t looking for—a picture from the TV show “W.I.T.C.H”.

Unlike that somewhat childish “Winx Club”, that Sayaka-chan and Homura-chan had been talking about before (that Madoka hadn’t know at all, until she’d come home and looked some things up on it), this American Magical Girl show was one that she knew well. One that she even liked a great deal, but…

There was just something about it that always bothered her. The main character, Will—when she held the Heart of Kandrakar—forced everyone to transform at the same time, and into outfits that looked very similar to her own.

Madoka didn’t know why, but she always felt like Will—or, rather, the destiny that had chosen her to be the leader of the group—was imposing what she wanted onto others when they did that.

It was ridiculous, really, because the Sailor Senshi also wore uniforms, and Madoka had never once been concerned with that.

But something about all the girls transforming at once, and Will carrying the heart that caused it to happen—a heart that could, maybe metaphorically, then, be referred to as all of their powers—just creeped Madoka out.

Halting her search then—and trying to remember that she really did enjoy “W.I.T.C.H” a lot—Madoka ended up loading the second opening for it on YouTube, and that thankfully didn’t show their matching outfits very much. So she instead was able to enjoy the parts about Will’s funny quintessence powers.

Getting up from her computer chair then, Madoka decided she’d let the rest of the song and video play out, but take a small break and do some other things herself.

One of these “other things” was to rip off a white-silver string from some holly she had in her room—that she’d forgotten to take down at Christmas—and to weave it into her hair.

“There,” Madoka said pleased with herself, as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. “I can wear this to school tomorrow, and enjoy how it’ll somewhat match the snow when it falls down on me. Hehe… And hopefully I really well be celebrating white tomorrow, because I’ll have found some of those sporks to mark the occasion!”

Madoka’s mood ended up dropping considerably, however, when Kyubey suddenly appeared in her room, by her computer.

She sighed resignedly, wondering what the creature would try to do to get her to make a Contract this time.

Leave it to him to somewhat make her rethink her love for white, Madoka thought bitterly.

But one quick look to her left—where a white rose that Mami-san had given her was stationed, as a sort of gift to her for that horrible day she’d had—and she remembered why she favored that mix of all the colors so very much.

“Kyubey, what are you doing here?” Madoka asked, as she tried her best to keep the acid out of her tone:

She really had no reason not to trust him, after all—other than all the things that Homura-chan had warned her about the first day they’d met.

And though maybe Homura wasn’t the most… reliable person in the world, but Madoka found that she believed her classmate about this one case.

Just the look in the girl’s eyes when she talked about the “Incubator”, as she called it, was proof enough of Kyubey’s ill-will to Madoka, really.

Besides, Madoka was actually liking her new friend Homura-chan a lot more lately, actually.

For as to try and make up for what she had… had nearly done to Tomohisa (and Madoka still gulped and nearly passed out thinking about that), she’d used some of her magic to enchant the bars on Tatsuya’s crib, so that he could never fall out of it by himself.

Honestly, that was one of the nicest things that anyone had ever done for Madoka (as she did worry about Tatsuya a lot, and even moreso now that she knew about Witches and Familiars), so Madoka had quickly found it within herself to forgive Homura.

…Even if she had somewhat been puzzled by the whole thing.

She’d asked Kyoko-chan about it on a whim once—when the girl had been lurking outside of the school, before any of Madoka’s other Magical Girl friends had left the building—and Kyoko had explained that that kind of magic shouldn’t have been possible for a Puella Magi.

Kyoko had been ninety-nine point nine percent positive that for something like that to be done, a Magical Girl would have to be standing in front of the object and exerting magic into it twenty-four-seven, something that Homura most definitely wasn’t doing.

“‘Sides,” Kyoko had said then, as she’d stuffed two pringles into her mouth and munched on them wholeheartedly. “That would tax her magic out way too fast, unless she had an endless supply of Grief Seeds to deal with it, which I doubt she does. So how Piglet’s doing this, Muggle, I ain’t got any idea.

“But hell, I sure ain’t complaining. I wanted to kick her ass after what she tried to do to ya, but if she’s found some way ta try and make up for it, who am I to judge her? Kinda wish I was in on her secret, actually.”

 _I think her secret is that it_ is _taxing out her magic_ , Madoka thought regretfully now, as she worried about Homura maybe not being able to fight as well in a Witch’s Labyrinth for maybe helping her brother. _But how she can do that while being away from here, when you said that should be impossible, Kyoko-chan, is a mystery to me._

Madoka, could it be that you want to control other Magical Girls?

“Huh?!”

Kyubey licked his paw, in what looked like a bored fashion, before he bounded over into the pinkette’s lap.

Then, his red eyes boring into Madoka’s own orbs, he explained himself with, I walked in on you looking at a picture of a team of Magical Girls. I was merely wondering if you wished to be part of a group yourself, and perhaps even lead it. Forgive me, if I was wrong.

“Oh, no!” Madoka swiftly exclaimed, resisting the urge to remove Kyubey from her lap as she tried to cross her legs. “I would never want to do that to others, Kyubey. That picture came up on its own, when I was searching something else entirely. Ehe.”

Kyubey jumped away from Madoka then, and headed over to where she had a pink, almost purple, ribbon hanging up on her closet door. Before Madoka had been thinking of wearing that to school, before the idea of snow, white roses, and sporks for her brother had turned her thoughts to all things alabaster.

You seem to dislike the idea of people controlling others entirely, Kaname Madoka. Might I ask, then, why you seem to trust Akemi Homura so very much? She’s proven herself to be suspicious, hasn’t she? And her favorite color is one of the ones that make up those “W.I.T.C.H” costumes, that you seem to despise.

Madoka had had it.

It wasn’t that she completely thought that the Magical Girl maker was wrong, exactly, but… she had chosen to give Homura the benefit of the doubt, and Kyubey really needed to respect that.

Besides, out of the two of them, Madoka had a theory that maybe the white little creature was way worse than Homura-chan was.

So looking to her bedroom door—hinting that she’d go see her family and use that as an escape, if Kyubey didn’t listen to her now—Madoka said, “Please leave me, Kyubey. Homura-chan… She has her issues, yes.

“And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t mad about some of the things she’s done, but… You have your own issues, too: for creating Nagisa—and giving her her powers—and not even seeming to be the slightest bit sad when she died!”

And perhaps it was because of the tears that were suddenly in Madoka’s eyes, that Kyubey actually heeded her wish.

Maybe he realized she was so upset, if he didn’t leave her now, she’d never make a wish for him.

Whatever the reason was, whether it was Madoka’s wish or not, the Incubator quickly disappeared from Madoka’s sight.

But she still couldn’t help from looking at the violet ribbon hanging in the air—blowing to and fro because of the furnace directly under it—and thinking.

**Homura’s PoV**

At school, it was not Saotome sensei who was teaching all of the girls’ classes that day, but peculiarly… they’re math teacher.

Saotome-san was sick, and instead of getting a substitute for her… the male instructor had decided that he could teach even the subjects that he usually wasn’t informing her students about (as he would always come into the room for part of the day, and teach algebra and science to Homura and her friends), but because of that… They had to get _him_ a substitute for the certain people he wouldn’t be seeing that day.

Homura wasn’t too happy about it, because she still remembered when the man had humiliated her in front of the entire class her first day back in the original timeline. And it was even more awful in that all of the subjects he was teaching today had something to do with arithmetic, too.

Like for the Language Arts he was attempting to teach? Now everyone had to connect words to their correct definitions, get a number and color for them, and then shade in a picture on a graph.

Homura got the sense that Madoka wasn’t much too ecstatic about the whole ordeal, either. And despite the beautiful clean looking ribbons she was wearing, Homura wondered if Madoka was actually feeling dark and sinful things about the teacher.

…He had been somewhat short with her when they’d gone on a fieldtrip and Miki Sayaka had gone missing once (into a Witch’s Labyrinth that Sakura Kyoko had had to save them from, because Homura had there too late herself).

He hadn’t even known who Sayaka was when she’d gone missing, according to Madoka, for when she had said that “Sayaka-chan hasn’t come back yet”, he had stumbled for a while until he finally realized that she meant “Miki-san?”!

Idly, Homura had to wonder if Madoka maybe subconsciously remembered that event, and that was part of the reason for her aggravation.

Suffice to say, the both of them were glad when they could finally have lunch on top of the school building and catch a break.

No one else was sitting there that day, because it was snowing outside and cold (which made Homura think that all of her classmates were weak, except for Madoka, but then she remembered that they didn’t have the powerful empty shells that Kyubey had given to her, so perhaps the real problem was that she was just too strong), and so Madoka was eating her bento with much emphasis.

As Homura had forgotten her own food, she wondered if Madoka was hinting at her that she could ask for some of hers?

“Madoka…” Homura said at last, stopping to glare at Kyosuke, who was now running across the roof to get to another part of the building—talking about “Lightning Returns”, as he and a group of his friends did so, completely leaving Madoka out for not having gotten to that particular game yet. “Are you sad that Miki Sayaka and Shizuki Hitomi have left you behind? I can’t understand why they’d choose to go without you at all, to be honest with you.”

Madoka giggled, and the sound startled Homura greatly—something she tried to play off by straightening her black socks that had begun to fall down.

“Hitomi-chan gets good enough grades that she doesn’t have to worry about leaving school for a little bit. And Sayaka-chan… she really doesn’t care, so it was no big thing for her to agree to the expedition. But for me? I get decent marks, but not the best, so I thought it’d be best if I stayed here and learned more things… Even if I do feel a bit lonely, I’ll admit. Even Kyosuke-kun’s meeting theme somewhere now, apparently.”

Well, that was news to Homura. And here she’d thought that Kamijo Kyosuke was just being a jerk a moment ago. So had he been in a rush to be able to go meet the girls somewhere just now, then?

And the people he’d been darting past, who were talking about "Lightning Returns"… was that just mere coincidence?

“If you don’t mind it, Madoka,” Homura began, taking a shot in the dark—and looking at the gulls at the far end of the roof that currently had the pinkette’s attention—“I could pay you some attention, if you want, so that you won’t be lonesome. I’m sure that Tomoe-san would love to be around you, too. Perhaps even Sakura-san and her Yuma. You don’t… “

 _You don’t have to be so disheartened that you’ll make a wish,_ Homura wanted to say. She stopped herself, though, because for once… she and Madoka were having a normal conversation, like they had during old times, and Homura didn’t want to ruin that by talking about their far-too-tragic lives, like she usually did.

“Thank you, Homura-chan,” Madoka announced, putting some rice into her mouth, that looked to Homura like it had some orange sauce on it.

She’d have to file that information away for later. Provided that they defeated Walpurgisnacht this time, maybe Madoka would want to hang out at her house afterward. In which case, it would certainly be a good thing to know what the girl liked to eat...

_Maybe… Maybe Madoka just likes orange things in general? She sure seems to adore the orange elephant plushie that she has in her room, after all._

“You can have some of this kung pao chicken if you want some, Homura-chan. Papa always makes more than enough for me, so if you like this stuff… Feel free to help yourself.”

And the look on Madoka’s face told Homura that she might force her to eat from the tray, even if she declined the offer. No doubt Madoka realized just how malnourished she truly was…

But as tempting as the offer was, Homura found that she couldn’t accept it.

She found that she was even caught in a memory now, as she answered Madoka’s question while looking off to the right of the area:

“Th-thank you, Madoka. I- I do appreciate it, but I find I actually don’t like kung pao that much, unfortunately. It’s- it’s my mother’s fault. She once said she thought the nuggets from ‘McDonald’s’ were trying to copy the kind of chicken we have here. To prove her point, she had us binge on those for a while, and I developed an affinity for them. So now… Now when I eat regular kung pao, I just get a craving for those—and become more hungry—so…” (1)

 _And my mother died in a car crash, driving to McDonald’s to get us that food, so now… Now I feel that if I don’t eat those McNuggets every chance I can get, my mother’s death was for nothing_ , Homura was so close to saying this out loud, but she made sure that she didn’t. She didn’t want to sound too morbid, after all, when she and Madoka were finally attempting to repair their relationship some.

And if… If she admitted something like that, the selfless Madoka might even wish for her to have a lifetime supply of that restaurant chain’s food, or for her mother to even come back from the dead, so Homura couldn’t risk it. Madoka had wished for more random things than that before, after all.

“Homura-chan,” Madoka said in a tone that Homura had never heard before. She sounded like she was slightly crying, and yet… She also seemed to be acting like one of her dearest dreams had come true, when she put a hand atop Homura’s own and looked directly at her. “I think… I think that might be one of the truest things about _you_ that you’ve ever told me. Maybe the only time you’ve told me about your past, or your opinion on things.

“You did… you did tell me that you wanted to be part of the drama club our first day together, but that was a lie, I think. Weren’t you just trying to cover up your tracks?

“Anyway, thank you for being honest and trusting me, Homura-chan. Thank you so much.”

And before Homura could even blink, Madoka had leaned into her and given her a one-sided hug.

She was grabbing her school supplies now, and her empty bento box, and heading towards a trashcan before their next class started.

And as the bell sounded, Homura found that she could only follow after Madoka confusedly, wondering if she should maybe inform her that the truth about that first day… was she wanted to be a ballerina and not an actress.

If there was one thing Homura was positively sure of, though, it was that her feelings of affection towards Madoka were even stronger now, and she would do her damnest to keep the girl safe and succeed this time.

…No matter what it cost her.

…

Homura didn’t know what had inspired it, exactly, but she found that she had grown suspicious of Tomoe Mami again.

And for that reason, she’d decided to go back to the park where the girl had fought her first Witch…

It hadn’t gone well for Mami, and a woman’s son had ended up getting killed by the menace.

And to add even more insult to injury for Mami, Homura assumed, the Witch had gotten away, and the golden girl usually never found it again.

Though in some of Homura’s attempts, the Witch would appear again in the same area it had originated—and the mother would then get sucked into it, via a Witch’s Kiss.

And the problem, whenever that had happened in the past, was that the middle-aged-person actually seemed to want to die in those times, so when Mami ended up saving her—and defeated the Witch that had given her nightmares for so long—the once-mother would then tear into Mami, and blame her for not letting her reunite with her son, and for not winning against the Witch in the first place.

Homura frowned at the mere thought of it all, and tried to imagine just how painful it would be for her if Madoka’s mom ever approached her in such a way.

…Call it intuition, or what have you, but Homura got the sense that rare event was going to come into fruition again here, for better or for worse.

Except… except that so far Homura was only seeing fathers and sons around the place, all decked out in green for an early St. Patrick’s Day festival, it looked like.

There were even some people paying to do some grass colored finger-paintings on canvases.

At that, Homura had to smile somewhat. She’d always, despite her best efforts to deny it, liked green for many a reason.

Perhaps mainly because it was created by blue, just like her own favorite color was?

And it was with thoughts like this in her head, that Homura ended up seeing Chitose Yuma in the crowd—the only girl in the crowd besides Homura herself, it looked like.

It was just so fitting that Yuma would be in this sea of emerald, Homura found, rolling her eyes.

But as she got a closer look at the girl, Homura noted that Yuma didn’t seem interested in the event at all. Instead, she was giving French-fries to some birds that had swooped down to check everything out.

The avians were a nice blue color, and one of them even ended up rubbing its head against Yuma’s hand—Homura was shocked to see what a lovely picture it created:

The abused girl was showing a kind of niceness that she herself had never known, and Homura oddly found herself wanting to cry for it.

If she destroyed Walpurgisnacht once and for all this time, maybe Yuma could work with less than fortunate animals and start wonderful commercials—like she almost looked like she was in right now—to support the search for them.

That was a happy and uplifting thought.

And it was for this reason that Homura decided to approach the girl with more pep in her step, smiling at Yuma as she did so.

When she finally reached the girl—her hair swirling behind her back just once more, causing a slight noise before she finally stopped her motion—Homura said, “Chitose Yuma… I see that you’re acting to protect your teeth by not eating junk food, and instead feeding the fries to the birds. That’s kind of you. I’m sure Sakura Kyoko would approve, after talking you to the dentist yesterday.”

At that, Yuma positively beamed. Getting to her feet then, but sparing one last thoughtful look at her new friends, and nodding her head once at them, Yuma replied, “Yeah, you’re probably right. Haha. I guess that means I can’t have any of onee-chan Mami’s food anymore, though, huh? Or even eat too much of what onee-chan Kyoko gets?”

“All things in moderation,” Homura replied earnestly. But perhaps proving that she wasn’t completely better today, like she had thought she was, Homura was not thinking of delicious foods when it came to these words of her own, but rather in how some of her time traveling it seemed she got to be close to Madoka again, but in other travels they were more distant than ever.

Anyway, Chitose Yuma had just brought up Tomoe Mami, hadn’t she? And that was exactly what Homura wanted to hear.

So taking in a deep breath before uttering her next words—something that Homura was almost certain that Madoka herself had done at least once—Homura found the confidence to truly talk to the girl that Tomoe-san had supposedly chosen to protect. “Have you- have you seen something at Tomoe Mami’s that seems at all suspicious to you? Anything at all? I was wondering because…”

“Because ya wanna protect Muggle, right? And ‘cause Fuki, for whatever reason, got ‘chu thinking that pink and green pair well together, so now ya think that Yuma’s the solution ta all your problems. Right? And somehow ya think Mami’ll get in the way of your plans.” (2)

Yuma seemed to close her mouth against what she’d been about to say, as Kyoko made her way onto the scene.

And Homura could only watch her in trepidation—remembering that the red Magi had been livid with her before.

And if she wanted to deal with her chosen green girl somehow, she’d have to go through Kyoko, who was wearing that pigment—in the form of a hoodie—, wouldn’t she?

“Kyoko, how- Well, I guess I haven’t been keeping my feelings about Madoka that secret. And if- if you’ve somewhat been stalking me, I guess you could maybe glean some of my plans, but… How do you know about Fuki? I don’t interact with her anymore, so-”

“Tch. Except that she sometimes looks at ‘chu guiltily, ya know that?” Kyoko said, getting closer to Homura and placing her hands on her hips, as she wagged her head in the other girl’s face. “I got curious when I saw it one day, so I asked her about it, Piglet.”

Honestly, despite the fear that Homura thought Kyoko was trying to evoke in her by saying this all, Homura was actually having to do her best to even remember the old friend, that Kyoko was unfortunately right about!

The one that _had_ inspired some suspicions in her, when it came to the colors of magenta and forest.

Feeling like a small girl again, Homura ended up taking a seat on the ground—nearly knocking a small boy’s painting down as she did so, as she hadn’t been paying attention to what she was doing—as the two girls present watched her anxiously.

And Homura almost found herself wishing that some of the birds that were still around would peck at her, so that would maybe give her an excuse not to answer—this was not something she wanted to think about.

But speaking up, anyway—once again lost in the past—Homura admitted that, “Fuki… she was the first friend I ever had. She originally went to school with me in Tokyo: a catholic girl’s school, that is.

“And I… as sad as it is—especially since her betrayal hurt me so much—I really only remember one thing about her: When we used to watch fireworks together, and a pink and green one would appear close together, she’d always say how the two of them were meant to be.

“Looking back on it, she only said this because she was associated with pink, it was her favorite color and all, and the boy she liked had an affinity for anything even remotely connected to blue.

“Eventually the two of them did end up dating—maybe because they both had to move away to Mitakihara at the same time—but Fuki never spoke to me again. Our friendship just died, and I never really knew why.

“All I know is that I blocked her from my mind completely. It was too painful not to. And when I ended up coming to Mitakihara middle school myself, and found out she was here, I ignored her completely.”

 _And now that you brought it up, Sakura Kyoko, I have to wonder if my making friends with Madoka was originally me trying to replace Fuki_ , Homura suddenly thought, ashamed of herself.

But as it somehow happened, thoughts of Madoka also ended up sobering her up, instead of just making her feel miserable, so Homura found herself getting up and preparing to go investigate Mami’s again.

If her upper classman was any threat at all, Homura wanted to figure that out sooner than later, thank you very much.

Casting one last look at Kyoko over her shoulder, before she prepared for her jog, Homura saw that she seemed to be frozen in shock at the story.

And though she quickly tried to play it off like she wasn’t, the violet girl could tell that she seemed regretful for having spoken of Fuki now.

Kyoko’s hand was partly outstretched towards Homura, maybe in trying to offer her some sort of moral support, but since her Soul Gem ring also happened to be on that hand, it didn’t inspire much confidence in Homura.

Without a word, and feeling somewhat mad at Kyoko for bringing her past nightmares up, Homura took off.

Yuma, though, was right behind her.

…

Maybe… maybe there was a God, after all, Homura now thought. (Even though she had doubted it ever since her mother had apparently died while listening to Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” song on the road.)

Perhaps the universe, to make up for her being badgered about the friend she’d truly wanted to forget, had allowed her to have Chitose Yuma helping her look through Tomoe Mami’s apartment for evidence.

Homura had used her magic to break into the place, and in doing so she recalled when she’d broken into her friend’s home once before—that had been on happier terms, though, as Homura had taken the opportunity to tell Mami to become an idol in that moment.

And then, after that, taking a leaf out of her book… Mami had used the same kind of magic to unlock the door to the school roof that Homura herself had locked.

She’d gotten a good ribbing from Mami then (which she’d actually kind of deserved, being teased like that), and it was probably one of the best memories she had of that fellow Magical Girl.

_…If only- if only that battle with the Carnival Witch hadn’t ended up being one of the bloodiest ones of all! Everything would’ve ended up so perfectly that time!_

“I think,” Homura said, as she looked through cupboard after cupboard of Mami’s, somewhat trying to distract herself. “I think we should look for something having to do with her parents, maybe.

“Tomoe Mami is a meticulous cleaner, for instance, so if you happen to find dirty plates, or something… Perhaps that was an artifact of her parents’ that she refuses to touch. And I think- I think she’d be most likely to hide something important in a place like that, so keep your eyes open for it, Yuma.”

Except that Yuma was shaking her head and disagreeing with Homura entirely now, and the purple Magi had to do her best to not sigh or yell at the little girl.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Yuma corrected, a hand to her face where one of her mom’s cigarette butts had burned it.

“I think she’s maybe hidden some important things in a place like that, sure. But something as dire as you seem to think it is? I think it’d be somewhere more significant.

“You said… you said that she wrote a note to herself about protecting me… and where’s one place that kids have to go when they’re young? To have baths in the sink. Maybe there’s something there.”

At first Homura wanted to scoff and say that there was no _way_ that that would be the case. Yuma was way too old for that kind of a thing, after all, and had been for a long time.

But then… Placing the toy light saber of Mami’s down that she’d just unearthed, Homura decided that Yuma might be right.

Mami had also been close to Nagisa in this loop—also known as “Bebe”, or “Baby”—so perhaps “Mommy” had thought of that, and—in response to Nagisa—had chosen to put confidential items in a place that somewhat had to do with babies.

Mami also loved to cook, and one needed the kitchen sink to do that.

And furthermore, if Tomoe-san wanted to protect Yuma—and she knew about her past of being burnt—wouldn’t she also think of the sink when it came to her? Especially if her mom somehow came back, hurt Yuma again, and then Mami would need to hastily care for her?

Yuma, as if reading Homura’s mind, seemed about to close the case even moreso. “And I went to the dentist yesterday, as Mami knew, and they had me rinse my teeth out over a sink there.”

But before Homura could think about that too much—or even start making her way to the kitchen, after putting the light saber back safely away—she was halted by what felt like a Witch’s Kiss seizing her: something Homura had only ever felt once before and by a certain Witch.

“Hyades Daybreak!”

And close to the girls, circling Mami’s dining room table that Homura had somehow missed, were Soul Gems filled up to the brim!

And they were all combining together to make massive Witch in the sky, that was almost another Walpurgisnacht to certainly be their destruction.

How was this… how was this even possible?! Homura hadn’t thought the Pleiades Saints were around to cause such a thing this time, so wha-

Have fallen to her knees, Yuma looked as though she was having a panic attack as she tried in vain to use her healing magic to turn the Soul Gems back to normal.

And Homura sighed as she walked over to her, feeling suddenly numb, as she found herself wondering if Yuma would now turn into a Witch for knowing the truth: another Witch that she’d have to kill now.

And speaking of killing a recently-turned-Witch, Homura now had an idea!

All the contaminated Soul Gems—Grief Seeds—that Kyubey was, of course, now running to, and trying to send out into the cocktail that was Hyades Daybreak, hadn’t made it to their intended destination just yet.

If she could maybe shoot some of the jewels before the Incubator got to them to kick them out into the night sky, she’d be making matters a lot easier for herself, wouldn’t she?

It was with this thought in mind that Homura changed into her Magical Girl attire, and pulled some Beretta 92FS’s out of her shield immediately.

This was how she’d make it up to Madoka, for having shot her Gem so many times before _she_ could turn into a Witch:

By destroying these stolen Gems before they could become a Witch as powerful as Walpurgisnacht: the thing that always bested Madoka one way or another.

But finding some slight sympathy for Yuma within herself while she had it, Homura leaned down and smiled at the girl the slightest bit, before she opted to try and dish out divine justice. “It’s alright. This will all be over before you know it. Just close your eyes, and I’ll protect you.”

_Close your eyes, so you don’t have to see the horror of me destroying other girls’ souls._

Her fingers were on two triggers, as she stood back up—and she was posed to fire off both guns—but she was halted the moment that Tomoe Mami made her way onto the scene.

“Akemi-san, no! Don’t do that! I have- I have a better way of dealing with the girls about to turn. You just handle the Witch, okay?!” Honestly, Homura wanted to argue this for many a reason—as the Witch’s power started to lift Mami’s roof clear off the building, with a creak that only should’ve accompanied trees being split in half:

The most important one seeming to be that Tomoe Mami seemed to know about the fate of Magical Girls, and wasn’t falling apart at the seams for it (yet; Homura didn’t at all rely on that remaining a constant).

And though Homura wanted to keep a careful eye on her—in case she eventually did lose it, and maybe hurt the now crying Chitose Yuma, of all things—Homura put all of her concerns (one of which being that if Mami had been home all along, why hadn’t she stopped them from going through her stuff?) aside.

She ever so slightly nodded her head at Mami, and then once again leapt from the girl’s window and into a fight.

This one was much more personal than the Yosho battle, however, because it reminded her far too much of the Witch that had ruined her life and she _would have her revenge on this one—especially if she was faded to never have it on the other. …_

Homura did make sure to destroy that copy of the Incubator before departing completely, though. It would do no good, after all, for him to chuck the Soul Gems before Mami could gather them up, would it?

And how she had longed for his blood, anyway.

Now landing atop the hat that the massive Witch was wearing, as it tried to punch a hole in skyscraper after skyscraper as it moved along the well-to-do street, Homura fished for a bomb to detonate, and tried to decide if the casualties in this large part of the city would be worth it or not.

Which would be the lesser of two evils? Running this Witch down in a slower way—and hopefully keeping people from being blown up by her own products that way—or getting rid of the Witch before it could kill the people it so desperately wanted to, and just praying for the best?

The dark Magical Girl was saved from making that kind of a decision when Sakura Kyoko once again interrupted her thoughts.

Normally Homura wouldn’t have thought she would’ve been able to see the girl from such a distance away, but all the red that Kyoko wore was really just too hard to miss.

Especially when her little cherry tongue had darted out of her mouth, as horror settled in on her face, when she apparently got a look at the beast above her.

Kyoko quickly transformed then herself—red diamonds appearing to help her with that, instead of the red flames that Homura was more used to when it came to Kyoko—and then she was using magic to get up towards the Witch: using her spear to pole vault in a way that Homura really didn’t want to see, because she was so sick of doing that herself the first day of the month.

Finally, Kyoko reached Homura and placed a hand on her arm to keep her from detonating the bomb.

Meanwhile, the orange of the sun was lighting up the inside of Mami’s apartment, and Homura could tell that she looked frantic.

“Yo, Homura! After nearly killin’ Muggle’s dad, you’ve gotta know there’s no way in hell I’ma let you set that off where there’s innocent bystanders. Give it to me now!”

And surprising even herself, Homura didn’t press the issue—knowing that she’d probably need Kyoko on her side for Walpurgisnacht later—but she did end up fighting about something.

“Then I suggest you make yourself useful to me, Sakura Kyoko,” and first making good on her promise and shutting the bomb off, Homura then used a bit of her magic to make Kyoko as stiff as a board—and even somewhat invulnerable. Homura then purposefully crashed into her, and sent the both of them falling off of the Witch’s hat.

Kyoko (and Homura atop her) landed on one of the Witch’s arms so roughly, then, it came clean right off of her and lost all its power, as it began to fade away—particles of it getting sucked to and fro by the Witch’s own wind, in a sort of poetic justice.

And Homura, having landed safely on the ground now, patted her back for accomplishing that much damage, without even using her full power.

Kyoko meanwhile, sulked, as her landing hadn’t been as easy as Homura’s at all, and she now seemed to be desperately trying to get a kink out of her right shoulder. “Hmph. Ya coulda at least have warned me yous was gonna do somethin’ crazy like that to make a real dent in her. Sheesh. You’re too reckless, Piglet. You know that?”

And before Homura could protest that she knew more than any of the girls, and it obviously showed, Kyoko threw her spear through a mouth that Homura too late had noted was breathing down her back, and preparing to eat her.

Maybe Kyoko, and the other girls, had some of their good points, after all, Homura thought—nearly traumatized, scrambling away from where the Witch had been with her hands and feet.

The girls’ luck didn’t end up lasting much longer after that.

Perhaps in revenge for having lost its hand, the Witch reached down and picked Kyoko up with its remaining arm.

Then, bringing her up to its mouth, it began blowing a torrent of wind at the scarlet girl, that Homura knew was probably not only making it hard for her to breathe, but also freezing her, and causing shrapnel around the area to cut into her.

In a cruel kind of irony, it was Kyoko’s right arm that was cut into first, a curtain of maroon blood trailing down it that was much louder than the outfit she wore.

Kyoko gnashed her teeth against the pain, but Homura didn’t know if that was a good idea. With winds as high as they were up there, couldn’t it cause her to bite down with too much force and shatter the bones?

…There was also the fact that the Witch had torn a seam down Kyoko’s jacket—so now she was just barely hanging from it—and seemed about to use her as a yo-yo.

Homura cringed. As much as she wanted to, she didn’t know how she was going to get up there to help Kyoko from everything in time. The Hyades Daybreak was too powerful, and Homura knew if she got too close to it now, the bitch would probably just make Kyoko suffer all the more.

There was a part of Homura that just wanted to walk away from this most powerful of powerful Witches (as it seemed even strong enough to stand against Homura’s number one nemesis now), and get herself securely to Madoka’s side on the off-chance something would go wrong and the Witch would find itself getting closer to her, for whatever reason.

And yet… Homura found that she couldn’t leave Kyoko behind, either.

It was stupid, really. She and Kyoko never even really saw eye-to-eye that much—Kyoko was much too savage for that—and could they even truly call themselves friends?

But Homura remembered times when she had nearly killed herself, and it had been only Kyoko who had seemed to care about it at all.

Homura couldn’t leave Kyoko to this awful fate, she decided then and there, and so she leapt into action.

She tried to use some magic to really be able to fly this time—she didn’t know if it was possible, or just how much magic it would take to do so, but it had to be easier and more cost-efficient than jumping recklessly and using her power to shut off the pain from it—and then, when that actually somehow ended up working (with a terrible flight path, it was true, and probably only caused by the Witch’s own power over the wind), Homura fished some laser guns out of her buckler.

They were only a recent investment, because they could only be used once (some girl whose parents had been killed by a pair of them had made a Contract with Kyubey to lessen the effect of them, Homura had found out on one peculiar jump, and it was something that had lasted through all her times after that), and Homura had thought she’d be using them for Walpurgis, but…

But here she was, firing them at the Witch’s eyes, anyway, and having the relief of seeing that head of hers somewhat go down, as each of Homura’s firearms now became useless.

The one arm and the body was still fighting, though, as the rest of the Witch seemed to lose its balance and was falling to the ground backwards.

And as it still held Kyoko in its hand, Homura could tell that it was doing its best to strangle her before it itself succumbed to its fate.

Kyoko was turning blue, and Homura wasn’t sure there was much she could do about it, unfortunately, as she leapt up and began kicking at the face for good measure.

For now… Now she could see that Kyoko’s neck wasn’t only being somewhat pulled back and forth, but had actually been sliced open.

Her head, even, was barely staying attached to the lacerated neck attached to it—something even far more gruesome than what had happened with Tomoe Mami, and Homura thought she was going to be sick for it—so stopping time wouldn’t even do anything to help her now.

She didn’t have enough magic for this.

Perhaps there was one thing she could do to try and make up for things, though, as the Witch dropped Kyoko’s body, and the Witch herself fell faster and faster towards the pavement—Homura didn’t even care if this ended up effecting the rest of the city or not:

She dropped a bomb in the Witch’s throat for Kyoko’s sake, and watched gladly as parts of it began erupting from the inside, as Charlotte had in the past after killing Mami.

She was needlessly torturing it at its end here for Kyoko’s sake, and Homura was glad for it.

In those previous timelines with Mami, killing Charlotte had always been a sort of penance for Homura.

And now, in this awful, awful attempt, absolutely obliterating the super powerful Hyades Daybreak was her atonement towards Kyoko.

But it didn’t feel like enough.

As Homura herself began plummeting towards the ground—not even being able to at all focus and save herself, perhaps—she remembered times when Kyoko had grown so close to her, that she’d started giving her beverages instead of food. She remembered her telling her to get it together and to tell Madoka about her feelings for her and, all the times that Kyoko had gotten her out of a scrape, and then compared it to a baseball game for Miki Sayaka’s benefit… (3)

And just like that, Homura found that she was suddenly furious, and that she was _not_ going to let it end this way.

Especially since her near death—that she’d only just stopped, by hovering in the air at the last moment, with her black hair tangling in her face as she did so, as if still asking for death and darkness—had made things crystal clear for her:

What did the Master Key from “Tenchi”, and a light saber have in common? That they were pretty much the same weapon, and the thing from “Tenchi” had no doubt been copied from those Star Wars items!

And what had Tomoe Mami been putting away in a cabinet, before that Familiar with a similar weapon had appeared?

A light saber.

And so it stood within reason to believe that Tomoe Mami had created that Familiar, didn’t it? As well as all of the Familiars and Witches somehow!

Without even thinking about it, Homura began flying back towards Mami’s apartment now, lost in her epiphany and pain—yes, actually flying, even without Hyades Daybreak’s wind still around; she didn’t know how she was doing it exactly, but she’d add it to the list of other things she didn’t know—and it all began coming together for her.

The first Witch they’d faced this time had been based on food, hadn’t it? And that was certainly something that Tomoe-san had always loved.

Then, after that, the next Witch had been all about ice skating! And why Homura thought this, she didn’t know, but she got the sense that if Tomoe Mami were to ever try and dance… She’d be moving her body in such a way as an ice skater.

The light saber Witch now spoke for itself…

But perhaps, most of all, the thing that Homura should’ve been focusing on from the get-go was how Tomoe Mami had appeared to her that first day: something that Homura had stupidly chalked up to just her imagination until now!

But what if it had been more than that? What if it had been how Mami’s powers were shown?!

Leaping over the outside balcony, and then back into Mami’s dining room, Homura was about to ask her some of these important questions, and if there was a way at all that she could save Kyoko, but…

What she ended up seeing—that distracted her—was a decked out Mami-san, standing in a sea of swirling orange clouds, with a brown cast cost over her skin, as she somehow purified some of the leftover Soul Gem’s.

And then, unbidden in Homura’s mind, came these words, “I wish I had the power to erase Witches before they’re born!” and much else.

**Author's Note: The title is based on the fact that apparently red is the color that travels the farthest, and therefore the last one that we see during a sunset, but Homura here is thinking it’s instead orange. ‘Cause of story reasons in this chapter that I’m sure you can probably guess;)**

**(1) I don’t really believe the thing about kung pao chicken and McDonald’s nuggets, personally, but someone told me that story once, and I decided to use it here to try and give Homura some more characterization:D**

**(2) “Fuki”, as I’m calling her, is actually supposed to be the girl that the fandom has dubbed “Poorfag”. You know, the girl seen in the classes who doesn’t seem to have the technology things that everyone else does? I’m using her here because I don’t buy the idea that Madoka is the first friend Homura ever had (but hopefully the way I wrote “Fuki” explains why Madoka’s kind of the first one that matters to Homura, and why she latches onto her so much), and I chose this random bystander so you guys would at least have SOME idea of her. Haha.**

**(3) The baseball reference with Sayaka is based on my favorite Madoka story of all time, “cat’s cradle”, by rumiberri, which I highly recommend!**

**Also, I referenced one of the audio dramas in here, the sad ending for Mami in the PSP game, and the Extra Route in the PSP game, for anyone who’s at all interested in that stuff.**

**See you all next time! Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!:)**


	5. If I Just Ignored This

**Mami’s PoV**

_They were all falling._

_Akuma Homura and Madokami had destroyed each other, and now that the two goddesses were disappearing so was the system that Madokami—and even Akuma Homura—had implemented._

_The entire world seemed to be coming apart at its seams, Mami thought, as she groggily turned her head from where she was at in the sky and saw some spiral staircases from a church now plummeting down with her._

_Maybe that made sense._

_Kaname-san had remade the world, hadn’t she? And now that she was dying, what could even be left of it?_

_Mami felt like crying for many a reason: for the unfair war she’d just had to be a part of between the two goddesses (she had chosen Kaname-san’s side, and so had all of her friends in the end, but there had been those who had been other Magical Girls who had been on Akuma Homura’s side), for having to fight her friends, for the battle wounds that tore at her soul even more than shattering her gem would have, and for losing everything._

_Really, Mami thought resignedly, she should’ve been used to losing everything._

_As she closed her eyes, and some of the stairs fell atop her, Mami was reminded of a book she’d read when she was lonely about a girl worried about falling through invisible steps._

_Perhaps it was even a metaphor for how she herself had acted on occasion, because how many times had she learned the truth about Magical Girls only to lose it at the injustice of it all and kill them and herself all for the fear that they_ might _hurt the world? Just as that girl only_ might _have been able to fall through the winding planks._

_She really had lost her mind a few times, huh?_

_There was also the death of her parents to factor into this “losing everything” thought, and thinking about that for the millionth time almost made the yellow Magi want to speed closer to her impending demise._

_Perhaps dying could be a kind thing? Peeking her eyes open for just a moment to see light overtaking her body—the light of God, or gods, perhaps, that might take her to her mom and dad?—Mami saw that she was closer to bottom of one of the reflective skyscrapers than she had been mere moments ago._

_If Madokami—and even slightly Akuma Homura’s—handiwork being stripped away from Earth didn’t kill Mami first, then she knew that the fall most certainly would._

_Just when Mami was about to give up entirely—she’d just seen Miki-san hit the ground, after all, and that girl had been one of her greatest friends through everything lately—she saw Madokami reach her side in record speed._

_She was… reaching for her, Mami saw tiredly, with the most questionable look on her face. It seemed as though the goddess really wanted to tell her something, but couldn’t spare the energy to do so._

_Later, when she looked back on this event, Mami would somewhat lie to herself about what had happened there. She’d remember that she’d reached out to Kaname-san in sensing her intent, and wanting to help her dear friend, but…_

_In all reality, Mami had only reached out for Madokami’s hands because she remembered when the girl had just been Madoka and had allowed her to hold her hands, as Mami herself had cried out her thanks to the other girl for choosing to fight alongside her._

_Once their skin contacted, that seemed to be all the connection that Madokami needed, because almost instantly Mami heard these words in her head:_

‘Save them, please. Save this world and all the Magical Girls.’

_And just like that, Madokami had hit the periwinkle pavement beneath her and her ended up resting where it always did when Walpurgisnacht came to the down and she died._

_If Mami had waited for that to happen, then she would’ve been too late, but fortunately she hadn’t._

_Remembering how Bebe and Miki-san had borrowed Madokami’s power in Akemi-san’s Labyrinth—which now felt like a lifetime ago to Mami—she ended up taking some of that power for herself and instantly set to work._

_She wouldn’t_ steal _Madokami’s powers or position like Akemi-san had, but rather give them all one more chance and then finally put Madokami back into her place in the universe when things were safe again._

_Madoka’s soul was too close to dying now, Mami saw, as she tended to that injured spirit first, so there was little she herself could’ve done to assist anyone now but Mami would make sure that that wouldn’t stay the case._

_She healed Kaname-san, and then chose to temporarily put her back in her home in Mitakihara._

_There was no one else there yet, and all the rest of the souls and world she had to create were still asleep._

_In fact, Mami wasn’t even sure if she planned to have Kaname live out a normal life for a while like Akemi-san had intended—maybe it would just be best to let her gather her strength after Mami had fixed everything else?—or put her right back into the sky when she was better._

_Mami wasn’t sure, and for that reason, she decided that everything she was doing now would just be for the time being until she came up with her final plan._

_…Except for with Bebe. Mami ended up caring for that girl’s soul more than she had anyone else’s, and she promised herself that—no matter what happened—she was going to keep her daughter by her side at all times, and so Mami tucked the young Magical Girl into her soul for safekeeping for the time being, as she now knew that Madokami herself had done for all those who had been taken in by the Law of Cycles before._

_Finally, Mami came across Akemi-san._

_Or Homura, as she perhaps should’ve been calling her, as Mami wasn’t sure that her friend deserved any respect being thrown her way at all._

_It wasn’t at all Homura’s soul that Mami came in contact with, as her soul was long gone, Mami wagered—destroyed the moment she’d bit into her Soul Gem and shattered it into a billion pieces when she’d spread her Barrier throughout the world. Instead, Tomoe Mami was dealing with Homura’s stopped body_

_Mami knew that if she wanted to, that she could give it a life again. But the question was should she do that?_

_She had_ hated _Homura lately—and had even felt that way before the girl’s awful world had sprung up—for she was cruel, narrow-minded, evil, and far more trouble than what she was worth._

_And if she were to bring her back and give her one more chance, Mami thought—as she patted the ribbon headband that held back Homura’s hair, that was much like the ribbons she herself and Kaname-san adored—there was no guarantee that something like this wouldn’t happen again and that Kaname-san would be safe._

_For a long moment, Mami thought about killing Homura. And she came very close to it, too._

_But then… Then she remembered the girl with no skill who had asked for her help in learning how to use firearms, as she’d wanted to protect people better that way._

_Mami remembered when Homura and her had bonded over tea and just being able to spend time together, because as Magical Girls who knew if they’d ever get such luxuries like that again?_

_She recalled the normal, non-Magical Girl who had baked a cake for her for her birthday, alongside Madoka, and yet Mami had rebuked her for it._

_So… she wasn’t the only flawed one, was she? Mami realized guiltily then. And what had Madoka said? To save the entire world and all the Magical Girls, or something like that?_

_Closing her eyes another time, Mami hopefully let a bright light envelop her one last time and she finished painting a certain picture that way._

_She knew a way that things could end right for Akemi-san and that wouldn’t go disastrous like Kyubey’s trap for Madokami had become._

_She would give Homura a final opportunity, but if she blew it then Mami would end her._

_Mami took the red ribbons from Kaname-san that Homura had somehow ended up with again for safe keeping, and she thought and she prepared._

**Homura’s PoV**

Homura ended up waking up somewhere that was not at all the place she and Tomoe Mami had been at when she’d apparently passed out.

Instead, it seemed to be a meadow of some kind—daisies, dandelions, and sunflowers were popping up all over the location, as bugs glided over them but without stopping to bother either of the two girls present at all.

Who knew? Maybe they in reality _couldn’t_ bother them.

If Homura was right about what had happened—and she was mostly sure that she was—maybe the yellow Magi (no, Homura corrected herself, the _brown_ Magi, because it seemed that that was the color her powers manifested in, as it was gold for Madoka and violet for Homura herself) had made it so the insects could have no dominion over them.

Trying to remember back to when she’d usurped Madoka (and it hurt Homura exponentially to do so, she discovered, feeling utterly shocked), she tried to recall if she’d had enough power, then, to stop the nasty little critters as a whole herself.

She probably would’ve, maybe (or _perhaps_ she could’ve, as Madoka’s own powers and will had been fighting her the whole time so Homura didn’t know what her full potential would’ve been like in the end), but she hadn’t bothered herself with little inconveniences and had instead _embraced_ things like snakes that Mami clearly would’ve found morally questionable.

Speaking slowly, as she shakily got to her feet near a babbling brook –something that set this area part from where she and Madoka had had in a picnic in white chairs that one time—Homura asked Mami, who seemed to be trying to get a knocked over caterpillar back onto its feet, “You’re the god of this world now?”

It probably hadn’t been the right thing to ask, Homura realized the moment the words left her mouth. She sounded far too accusatory for her own good—who was any worse than she was, after all? She who had ended up accidentally killing the person she’d fought so long to protect in a bout of insanity?—and she really should’ve been asking the Tomoe girl about Sakura Kyoko, she knew (and the whole scene that they had left behind, really), but….

Twelve plus years of thinking that she was the authority on everything wasn’t going to disappear overnight, and certainly not when there was a terrible voice inside of her that still thought she could do better than all this.

 _So that’s what that weird voice I heard from earlier was_ , Homura thought, falling to the ground and then laying her head against her knees, as she wrapped her arms around her legs.

Suddenly, Homura found that she didn’t want to be standing at all and she was thrilled that she no longer was. She didn’t deserve it after all the travesties she’d committed as Akuma Homura—that part of her that had been more Homulily than anything, though that hardly mattered—and she could remember far too clearly the number of Magical Girls she’d had to end up killing that had come against her.

(She had hated to do that, just as Homura assumed Madoka herself probably secretly despised having to take any girl into the Law of Cycles when it was their time… not that she had any right to compare herself to Madoka with all that she had now done, Homura knew.)

“Go on and continue to sound condemning of me, Akemi-san. Go ahead and think that this was a power play of mine, when really it was me saving _every_ thing, after you-”

Mami cut herself off sharply, sounding about to cry, and Homura wondered then if perhaps the injured being that had been meant to become a butterfly hadn’t made it, though Homura doubted that a small detail like that could so much as bother the other girl when they were discussing what they were.

She pondered, then, if Mami was perhaps remembering the horror that had come into play when they’d all began dying as Madokami had.

It had finally been in that moment that Homura had realized just how much Madoka’s wish—and the Law of Cycles as a whole—connected everyone and everything to her soul: even she as Akuma Homura had been effected in that moment.

But as Homura had also begun to perish the normal way, after having taken one of Madokami’s arrows (she refused to think of her as the Madoka that she knew) that she’d taken to the head, she’d been terrified to realize that in a best case scenario Madokami might survive and save her by enveloping her darkness into her light.

Was that really all the Magical Girls had to hope for? That their own spirits, ideas, and identities would be burnt out by Madokami’s… Madoka’s own?

It hadn’t seemed fair to Homura, and she’d known then that she herself had helped to make such a thing happen, as Madoka would’ve never gotten her power and wish had it not been for her.

But… as monstrous as that whole thing seemed to be to Homura, she also knew that it was neither that that was upsetting Tomoe Mami—no, Tomoekami—now.

“So all of this, then?” Homura choked out angrily, just as Mami had come out from behind a chair she’d been hiding behind on the other side of the stream—hinting to Homura that she was trying too much to be like Madokami, but at least she was no Akuma Homura, in not facing what she’d done and the girls she’d bamboozled like a woman, and instead just manipulating their memories, Homura had to admit silently to herself.

“Everything I’ve been experiencing lately has been a lie? Tomoe Mami, why would you do that to me? _How_ could you do that to me?

“After experiencing the same horrendous things in my Labyrinth—the thinking that everything was fine, only to realize it wasn’t, and that I was the only one that remembered everything again, if I just wasn’t crazy… seeing how Madoka’s system got completely torn asunder in the end, and it didn’t even matter; she couldn’t have even saved _me_ from a Witch’s fate, when I was the person she’d wanted to save all along—how could you make me go through something like it _again_? I was so close to suicide by that point, Tomoe Mami! You know it better than anyone! When I faked trying to do that in front of you, or when I nearly chose to die so Madoka wouldn’t- so she wouldn’t…”

Tomoekami was standing in front of Homura now, and despite the tears and messed up feelings blocking her vision, Homura thought that if she hadn’t seen a goddess in the form of Madokami before, or even herself, that she would’ve been astonished.

Mami’s hair had lengthened like Madoka’s had when she’d become a god, it seemed. It was worn completely down and it was curled; honestly, it reminded Homura of Sailor Galaxia.

Her eyes were brown, as was her dress and the aura that surrounded her—chocolate and cinnamon colors that spoke to Homura of good things and the idea that if she just followed this other woman she’d be okay.

The dress that Tomoe Mami wore was very tight at the bottom that ended just before her knees—the exact opposite of her Magical Girl outfit in that way, and it was also the bottom here that was connected together with her belts—but the top of it expanded out from under the obi into much looser, white material: a shirt that someone in the late eighteen-hundreds would’ve worn, maybe, with baggy long and white sleeves and the collar of the V-neck being much too full for its own good.

She was beautiful, Homura allowed, and she could see now why she’d perceived Mami as black her first day when seeing her again, because the goddess that had still been within herself had been able to sense the one that was in Mami.

But even now that Homura could tell that the maiden looking sweetly at her had only her best interests in heart, she didn’t think it was enough to forgive her. Not quite.

“I did what I did to save you. Or to try to, anyway: to observe you, judge you, and let you save yourself that way. I know… I _know_ how frightening things got for you because of what the Incubator did, Akemi-san. So that’s why I wanted to wake you up in the world you actually _do_ prefer over any other. The one you know and have relived the most, and so you wouldn’t spin out of control again; and so I gave you the world with the Witches.

“I woke you up in such a world, Akemi-san, making fake Witches with my power for _you_. I set up this whole universe for you, did everything for you, so that you could prove to me you’d be different and no longer evil... That you’d stop hurting people, and stop being so obsessive and dangerous to your ‘Madoka’, and that you’d finally come to live in the light.

“I even… I even lost my dear little Bebe through all of this, and I hated you for that, but at least she’s safe in the Law of Cycles with me—in _my_ soul, temporarily—now.”

There was a strong part of Homura that wanted to be angry about all of this—her entire god-forsaken life, the whole world and everything, really—and to try and steal power back from this other Magical Girl now and to continue the war and her own reign.

But when she stopped and really let all of this sink in—how this girl she’d nearly shot in the head last, like Madoka had just done to her, was doing this all for her… _despite_ the fact that Homura knew she no longer would’ve returned the favor—the good image that Homura had been trying to build up of herself in her mind’s eye shattered and she was left seeing the treacherous wretch she’d been for too long now.

And it was because of that that Homura now realized that she was in much the situation than she had been in with Miki Sayaka just a few days ago:

She’d done some cataclysmic stuff, and now—that her conscience was finally holding her accountable for these things—Homura found that she couldn’t run and hide anymore, and so that meant she’d have to get her verdict and die.

Tomoe Mami held all the power now, anyway, and Homura knew she wouldn’t fare well going against another ultimate Magical Girl (not that she even wanted to anymore), as she’d only barely had enough strength to do that last time (while also holding up the world and her version of the system that Madoka had created) and now all that strength was completely gone.

Falling at her _dear_ Tomoe-san’s feet then, and kneeling in front of the girl as she grabbed onto her legs and began to beg, Homura worded her last request: “Will you- will you take me back to the world that I know you saved? And let me at least see that before you-”

Without any answer to Homura’s words at all, or even a hint that she’d heard what she had to say, Mami seemed to act instinctively.

The two of them were now sitting back at the Senior Magical Girl’s home: at her glass, triangular table, and the whiplash was so strong that Homura found herself regretting every appearing and disappearing in front of people and maybe giving them headaches like this.

Homura got the sense, then, that the astral form of Mami—that was somewhere—must have been working so hard behind the scenes to have corrected this place that had been decimated just a moment ago, and Homura almost wanted to say a prayer to that Mami to thank her for it but she didn’t.

Homura, as she purposefully fell out of her chair so that she was once again at the new god’s feet, knew that she probably should’ve been asking how much Tomoe Mami had been able to undo of the Incubator’s most recent disaster:

Had she purified the Soul Gems of the girls that had been about to explode; had she saved—or taken into the Law of Cycles—those who had helped to make Hyades Daybreak?

…And the golden girl—because, really, she was still very much that to Homura for many a reason now—had said she’d been unable to put Momoe Nagisa back on Earth after that fake, out of control Witch had killed her, so what did that mean for Sakura Kyoko?

As always, Homura found herself asking about the first person that came to her mind. And how she hated herself for it, especially in this scenario.

“I know… I know you probably won’t answer me, Tomoe Mami, because I _am_ too obsessed as you put it, but… If you can read my soul at all, you must have sensed the change in me just now? That I regret everything, and that I’m so _very_ grateful for you setting my mistakes right…

“So if you really can tell, that at least for now my heart has changed for the better and that I’m once again the inexperienced Puella Magi you were at least somewhat friends with… Will you tell me if Madoka’s okay, where she is now, and if she- if she knows?”

 _She must know_ , Homura thought then—intentionally leaning her forehead against the carpet so it would be burned, as she thought it was something she deserved— _Madoka’s been very… strict with me this time around. And it isn’t that she hasn’t been like that before, but this time was different. This time was different because it was actually Madokami, rightfully, lashing out at me. And the white ribbons I saw her where the last time I saw her must be proof of that._

Mami sighed, and it was a kind of sound that Homura hadn’t been expecting at all. It sounded exasperated, yes, but at the same time there didn’t seem to be any fury there: just tiredness.

Truthfully, Homura could relate to that feeling, though she didn’t want to even consider it now. What she had done had been malicious and wrong on so many levels, whereas Tomoe Mami… She must have been blessed by Madoka to save the world, huh? It was the only thing that made any kind of sense.

“Oh honestly, Akemi-san. Get up, will you?” Mami—and yes, it was really her this time and not Tomoe Kami, because Homura now noticed that she was now clutching the blonde’s brown stockings that she only ever wore to school—said, as she forcefully pulled Homura to her feet and glared into her eyes with the fury of a thousand suns.

Never before had Homura ever understood why anyone would ever think this buttery color as dangerous, to be honest—sure it was the color of the sun and even some flames, but Homura had looked into the weak and too-easily-destroyed eyes of Tomoe Mami too many times to ever feel threatened by the color—but now she did: they threatened to swallow her up and dish righteous judgement on her even more than Madokami’s own orbs had done, as lightning seemed to flash at her eyelashes.

Homura gulped.

“I’m not going to kill you. I had hoped I’d made that crystal clear to you by this point. You tempted me strongly, though,” Tomoe Mami stated as she grabbed Homura by the collar and somewhat tossed her into the wall.

Mami wasn’t attempting to harm her, Homura could tell. In fact, she just seemed so one-hundred percent lost in her memories she didn’t seem to be aware of her actions.

“When you led to Bebe’s death… And when you nearly killed Madoka’s father!—good god, Homura! If I hadn’t just ignored that, where would you be now?!—I found myself wondering if what I was doing was right. I was mostly sure that it was.

“And Madokami—before she fell even worse than you ever did, _because_ of you—told me to save you so I guess there’s your answer to that. But when _Madoka_ wakes up here with her memories, that might be a different story; I don’t know.

“Forgive me, Akemi-san, but if Kaname-san decides to kill you, I won’t stop her; she knows more than all of us, and I wouldn’t even be alive right now if it weren’t for her; a good deal of us wouldn’t be...

“But anyway, at least for now can you act like the strong woman I know you to be? I can take you to a ballet recital to talk, if you’d like. I know you like those things, and hopefully _that_ at least would show you that I harbor no ill will towards you, Akemi-san.”

“J-just apologize to her for me?” Even as Homura uttered those (again) selfish words, she knew how pathetic they sounded.

Apologize to Madoka for what… having nearly killed her in her foolishness—for good—without even having the excuse of trying to stop her from turning into a Witch?

For trying to murder Madoka’s father this time?

Somewhere down the line, Homura had become the type of abusive significant other—though she knew it was a stretch to think of herself that way; she’d never meant much to Madoka, except when the girl had been Madokami and could understand her, but now after everything… she probably never would be _anything_ to her again—that thought the best way to protect their loved one was by doing things that hurt them.

How arrogant.

Tomoe Mami—no, Mami-chan; Homura wanted to think of the nice girl like that at least once in her life; especially if she was to die now—must have seen something on Homura’s face then. For using her magic before Homura could even hint or deny that she wanted to be moved to a dance recital, like Mami-chan had suggested, Homura found that they were there.

And despite all the ridiculous things that Homura had seen in her life, the sudden change all around her _again_ was actually enough to startle her and nearly give her a heart attack. Especially since it had been so long since she’d even thought about doing something for fun.

She was still human in that way, at least, especially here in Japan where people were always striving to make something of themselves more than anything...

“Miki-san really cared about you this time around, you know that?” Mami-chan said suddenly, in the red velvet chair right next to Homura—as the two of them watched the ballet section of “Phantom of the Opera”; Homura could tell that she was just groping for something to say that would keep her from jumping off the balcony and finally ending her miserable life, like she so wanted to.

She was tired. So _very_ tired.

She’d been tired through all her trials to save Madoka (and even some of the other girls at first)—tired from fighting the Wraiths, tired from the terrible truths she’d had to learn in her Labyrinth—when that sort of stuff should have been over—and she was tired from the terrible mistake she’d made and all that had come from it.

Homura just… she just very much wanted to die now. And maybe she’d actually wanted that for a long time. She didn’t even want some kind of heaven, because her mind would still be working then and repeating the same things to her again and again—even more than her time loops had—and Homura just very much wanted to be able to not have to think anymore.

The Magical Girl wasn’t even concerned about Madoka anymore. As far as Homura could tell, she’d be the ruler of the universe again all too soon: it was all she’d ever wanted, apparently, and Homura understood now that she’d been beyond ignorant (and selfish) to take all that away from Madoka.

…Even if she had had some good intentions with it.

“Miki-san didn’t… she didn’t know everything right away,” Mami-chan started talking again, shifting around in her chair so that she could grab Homura’s arm—to anchor her to the present, perhaps, while Homura felt like she was falling to the floor and falling in so many ways; how far could one fall, anyway?—and peer into her eyes. “It wasn’t until she began wearing that brooch that signified when I’d given her her memories back. But… she’s deeply sorry for how short she’s been with you at times before this, Akemi-san, and the mindless loops you’ve had to endure. She wanted to actually save you—and keep you safe this time—if it could be done.”

Homura nodded numbly, but she really wasn’t listening. She wasn’t at all surprised that Miki Sayaka had been clued into things here, and had perhaps been the only one aside from Mami-chan to have been—she had known things during Kyubey’s trap, hadn’t she?—so what else was new?

Homura _appreciated_ what Miki Sayaka had tried to do for her, she supposed.

And she was maybe even more thankful for it now, as she had been remembering lately some of the good times she’d had with Sayaka that she often swept under the rug: the times that the girl would try and teach her some hip hop to put into her dancing arsenal, especially.

But… Homura could barely focus on that stuff anymore.

Instead, she found herself looking at some ropes that held up the whole area she was in, and thought about choking herself with them the way that the fabled Phantom would strangle his victims.

Nearly snorting, Homura wondered if Mami-chan had any idea the kinds of things that taking her to see this production was putting into her head. And it did not help at all that ballet now just made her think of her dreadful Nutcracker Barrier and the fact that she’d tried to force Madoka into a dancing career in the previous world.

“What’s going to happen to me now?” Homura was brave enough to say, moreso because she didn’t want to dishonor all that Mami-chan had done for her in her thoughts—and so she needed to distract herself—and less so because she wanted to know and wanted to be alive.

“Yes, well…” Mami-chan said, as she crossed one of her legs over the other, and as she did so somehow made the ballerina’s outfits change from green to silver on the stage.

Mami smiled sheepishly at that, and as she did so Homura could finally understand why Momoe Nagisa had died—even though Mami hadn’t wanted her to—when the new goddess herself was controlling the “Witches”:

Apparently she mostly had Madoka’s power under control, enough to have some sort of Law of Cycles in effect and to create some impressive replicas, but she’d accidentally put too much power into them because she didn’t have everything mapped out in this world like Madoka would’ve.

Homura had dealt with much the same in the world that she had created, and she assumed that it had been the same story for Momoe Nagisa and Miki Sayaka, when they’d borrowed Madoka’s powers during the Homulily fiasco:

They may have been able to borrow—or steal, in Homura’s own case—Madokami’s abilities and do amazing feats with them, but at the end of the day it was only Madoka who had complete control over everything. She was the one to make that wish with the evil Incubator, after all.

Homura sighed, once again wondering what she’d been thinking in ever dethroning Madoka. She could barely even remember anymore. She’d just been so full of it and short-sighted!

“That’s somewhat the problem, Akemi-san. We don’t know _what_ you are anymore, or how to save you, if I’m being frank. You’re not a Magical Girl anymore, because you shattered your Soul Gem. You’re not a goddess anymore, because I’m the one with most of Kaname-san’s powers now. Though you do still have a bit…

“To tell the truth, Miki-san and Shizuki-san’s entire expedition has been about them trying to gather up the remains of your Soul Gem—where you shattered them over the Earth—and to put them back together, if that’s all possible. Otherwise…”

 _Otherwise you can only keep me alive for a short while, maybe, and after that—when I die—I’ll have nowhere to go, as one has to have their Soul Gem purified to enter the Law of Cycles and I no longer have one_ , Homura thought but didn’t say. She didn’t want to inform Mami-chan that she’d come up with the answer to the equation herself, for if she did…

Then the Senpai would probably want to try and rescue her even more—if she knew that she was so sure of her own fate—but Homura wasn’t sure she wanted to be.

“So what’s with the purple snow we’ve been having lately?” she decided to ask instead, just as Raoul and Christine in the musical fled from the murder scene and up to the “roof”, fake snow falling on top of them beautifully and Apollo’s Lyre and another watching at a distance.

Oh, right… Homura could only hope that she’d never been as creepy to Madoka as the Opera Ghost often was to Christine.

Not that it mattered anymore in the slightest, Homura thought as she dug her nails so far into her arm that she bled. She enjoyed the festivities of that, and prepared to labor through another one of Mami-chan’s answers that she really wasn’t at all concerned with.

“I’m not sure…” Tomoe Mami admitted, as she looked at Homura sympathetically.

In fact, as she did so, Homura got the feeling that if she didn’t sit up straight now—and stop all her slumping—that the woman would use one of her ribbons to pull her up tight.

Homura almost laughed at the thought. Almost.

“I had thought it had something to do with Chitose-san’s wish. Most of what you’ve seen here had nothing to do with that—and even Kyubey was fooled—but rather my trying to make Kaname-san happy, with crayons and all. But as you’ve seen, Chitose-san _is_ a Magical Girl. She made a wish for things to be ‘warmer’ here, as the Incubator said that she did. But so far I’ve yet to see the effects of that.

“I thought that perhaps what we’ve been seeing lately came from her wish. It would be the opposite of what she asked for, actually—so perhaps she was tricked in the wording of her wish and didn’t really get what she wanted. I don’t… I don’t know.”

 _And this is why the both of us should never try to take Madoka’s spot again, because as it turns out we know absolutely nothing with her powers while she knows_ everything _._

But even though that was true, Homura was now hating what Mami was explaining to her. And if Kyubey really had been as far ahead of them as she was saying…

She could guess now that when Incubator had been starting to guess what was going on, he had tried to maneuver the game board in his favor, making Magical Boys a thing and all.

No doubt the idea that there weren’t Magical Boys at all was just another lie that Mami had told her in the midst of the illusion that she’d maintained.

Homura didn’t even want to imagine the cans of worms that was no doubt about to open because of that fact.

In fact, she didn’t want to consider anything at all, otherwise she might feel the need to save Madoka’s father when she’d finally let go of Madoka.

Homura was done with being at this stupid musical now. In fact, she was done with most things in her life, actually.

Lying, and telling Mami-chan that she was feeling much better now and that she’d be okay, Homura got to her feet and began walking out of the amphitheater.

As she did so, the Phantom appeared over Apollo’s Lyre and began lamenting about his own horrible life.

Homura wanted to shoot him for it, but didn’t.

Meanwhile, Mami was looking at her like she was getting ready to put a finger on the trigger of her gun reluctantly.

Homura scoffed at that, as she thought her true feelings on it all: _Please do shoot my Soul Gem, Tomoe Mami. I don’t want to live anymore. Especially since I can’t make heads or tails of this world any more than my own ones or Madoka’s universe._

…

There was a shock of light that ended up enveloping the outside of Mitakihara after Homura stepped into it.

It was tunnel-like, and reminded her very much of what Madoka’s Soul Gem had become—pure energy—when she’d become Madokami.

And as it passed over her—how Homura was growing to despise the world being rewritten somewhere that she could see, and then being the only one who could remember it; why was it always only her that seemed to remember everything?—she wondered if Tomoe Mami had changed her mind about not killing her.

Or maybe even Madoka, if she’d just reawakened—like Mami had been hinting at all along—with her powers had now decided to get revenge on Homura.

If that was the case, Homura decided that she should open her arms wide and let the energy tear through her.

In fact, if it really was Madoka, this would almost be like Homura hugging her, whilst Madoka refused to hug her back, all over again.

Homura thought that there’d be no better way to end her stupid, pointless story than forcing herself on a confused and someone enraged—and far-too-emotional—Madoka again, as all of this had started after she’d hugged Madoka in her apartment in that final timeline, hadn’t it?

But… but far too soon the multi-colored torrent had completely disappeared—it hadn’t even disturbed Homura’s hair as it passed over her. And even the roaring in her ears, that had sounded like a million freight trains screeching and coming her way had subsided.

“You just put everything back to normal, didn’t you, Tomoe Mami?” Homura asked then, wondering who she was even talking to and why it mattered anymore.

She wanted everything to stop.

Just wanted it to stop…

“Though I’m surprised that your power seemed so destructive, when your world is more magical, peaceful, loving, and happy-fun-time than even Madoka’s was. Any world where Miki Sayaka likes me has to be like that.”

Homura was heading towards the desert now. It wasn’t a real desert per se, but a set that Mitakihara had erected once in trying to become more Hollywood-esque, Homura assumed.

But even so… It was real enough that many Wraiths had chosen to be located there and to try and kill the humans from afar.

And so that place had been where Homura had taken her last stand. She’d fought the menaces to the best of her ability, but in the end it had become too much for her.

She’d fallen into despair, and had become a Witch, because fighting the Wraiths on the sound stage… Had made Homura think even moreso that she was insane and that Madoka had never even existed. Perhaps it had just been something she’d made up, like how a TV show or movie was complete artifice most of the time.

Maybe even the Wraiths didn’t exist, Homura had thought then, and everything she was seeing was a dream she was having while her heart failed again in the hospital.

So between that treacherous, possible reality and something else, Homura had finally given up—also because she didn’t want to face down Sakura Kyoko asking her _again_ that if she was right about the “Madoka thing”… then why didn’t that mean that she could just put Sayaka back where she’d been before nearly succumbing to despair—and had waited to see Madokami again, maybe.

And now that Homura could see that Wraiths were slowly but surely appearing again—they’d always been here, she suspected, but Mami had just been fighting them for the girls behind the scenes; kind of like what Homura herself had done when there’d been no Magical Girls at all in her world—she thought that going to the place where she’d become a Witch might be the best place to finally die.

She pulled her bow and arrow from the holster on her side—she also hadn’t had time magic this entire time at all, had she? Tomoe Mami, just using her omniscient powers, had let Homura think she did when the situation warranted it and Tomoe Mami herself had been the one to effect things—and threw the weapon at the most towering distortion’s head, hoping to make it angry so that it would claw at her and tear her apart now.

Homura didn’t have a Soul Gem anymore, so she wondered if she could even be destroyed without it, but she would most certainly try it.

…At least she had planned on that until some red and gold diamonds had blocked her way. If she had wanted to, Homura knew that she could’ve used her own magic to get rid of the blockade but she couldn’t have been bothered to make the effort.

Besides, she supposed that she was thankful that Tomoe Mami had been able to revive Sakura Kyoko, so she might as well see what that girl had to say, she thought.

Kyoko was beside Homura’s side in an instant, putting an arm around her shoulder, and Homura remembered that before Kyoko had died she herself had been fighting tooth and nail to protect her. Perhaps Sakura Kyoko remembered that, and that was why she was suddenly acting so warm and fuzzy towards her?

“Don’t even think about tryin’ to kill yourself, ya got me, Piglet? I ain’t havin’ none of that.

“When Mami brought me back from the void just now, she filled me in on everythin’ that’s been goin’ on lately. And I tell ya what, there’s a part of me that wants to sock your ass for it again. But… I imagine you’ve had my back many a time now—so I might as well have yours when you’re apparently passin’ with flying colors now, when it comes to this whole ‘proving yourself’ deal.”

And perhaps trying to make up for all the times that Homura had saved her in the past—as Kyoko had just talked about—the red Magi jumped up into the sky, and stabbed the Wraith through its slumping head.

Homura never would’ve guessed that she’d be able to kill it as simply as that—even if it did look like Kyoko was putting a lot of her power into the attack and maybe even replicating herself to be able to do more damage –but faster than Homura could’ve anticipated the Titan-like creature caved in on itself.

Homura snorted, wondering if perhaps Kyoko had just dizzied the thing to death.

Apparently even now—when she was more apathetic than she’d ever been before, and just wanted everything to slow down until it became a crawl—Homura still had it within her to hate poor form.

Sakura Kyoko seemed to note this as she fell to the ground—quite a few stories at that, and she didn’t exactly stick the landing as she fell with one foot in the sandy set and another outside of it—and she gave Homura a withering look at it, before she called out. “What? Don’t give me that look! I think I did pretty well just now, thank ya very much! I may not be a power stealer like you and Mami are, but at least I finally learned how to tap into that excess stuff I stacked up after all _your_ multiple attempts.”

Homura blinked at this—remembering when she’d thought she’d seen some sort of red light coming from Sakura Kyoko on the first day of this “Mami Being Big Brother” timeline—but it had been something she was sure she had imagined.

She’d been less certain about the imagining of Tomoe Mami with dark skin—and now Homura understood the truth of that—but she’d certain that the power she’d sensed coming off of Sakura Kyoko that time had been a mistake on her part.

Apparently she’d been wrong, but what else was new?

…It wasn’t that after Kyubey had told her that she’d been making Madoka more powerful through her time hopping that she _hadn’t_ stopped to consider the other girls that she was so surprised.

Actually, Homura was pretty sure that it was partly because of that that she’d had the ability to become Akuma Homura in the end, though she shuddered at the thought of it now.

But she’d thought that if Miki Sayaka, Tomoe Mami, and Kyoko Sakura were also getting benefits from the time loops, it would’ve been lesser on the two veteran’s side—as they’d already made their Contracts, and could hardly get some access energy after the fact. And as for Miki Sayaka, she hadn’t been the one to rewind time or to make the world revolve around Madoka…

And yet here they now were: in a world that slightly revolved around all five of them, it seemed.

“What we’re gonna to do,” Kyoko began talking normally again then, seeming to have given up entirely on the discussion of Homura’s former obsession with Madoka, as she once again sidled up to Homura and began leading her away from the attempted suicide that she still very much wanted. “Is to get’cha to Nakazawa. As far as I’ve heard, the guy’s been a blessin’ to you this time. So you’re gonna hang out with him, and relax for the first time in your life, Piglet. We’ll take care of everything else, and you just live your life and wait to be a part of the Law of Cycles. Ya got that, moron?”

Homura ended up agreeing to Kyoko’s words, mainly just to shut her up, but she didn’t plan to actually heed the redhead’s wants.

Instead, she went home—wondering what her life would even mean for her now, and if she even _wanted_ it to continue—and she dreamed.

...

_“Ya gotta focus on the one thing that means the most to you and protect it to the end.”_

_It wasn’t the last time that Kyoko ended up saying these words to Homura that she was thinking about now—the time where she herself had almost been uncaring about any other fate than Madoka’s—but rather it was the first time that Kyoko ended up sacrificing herself for Miki Sayaka that was now playing in the violet Magi’s subconscious._

_The blue Magi had gone particular insane in that timeline, and had held some “evil” people hostage, and wouldn’t release them unless someone proved to her that that there was still some good left in the world._

_For that reason, Sakura Kyoko had decided to go and free the men herself—to show Sayaka that if she could change for the better, and grow to empathize with people, anyone should be able to do the same thing—but she was also planning to stab Sayaka’s darkening Soul Gem and her own after she got there._

_This was the timeline right after Tomoe Mami had nearly killed everyone, and because of that Homura wasn’t at all surprised anymore that the always pseudo-Witch’s world view—that always seemed to get more and more evil itself the further it went along—somehow linked to Kyoko’s own demise._

_But that didn’t mean that Homura was happy about it._

_At this point she was still the girl with the braids and glasses—stuttering, clumsy, and weak—and so she knew even as she followed after Kyoko to the train station, begging her to change her mind as she fell to her knees as she was often like to do, that she wouldn’t be able to do anything of substance._

_Homura did the only thing she could do in the situation: she got to her feet and hugged the girl from behind—refusing to let her go, as Homura had learned at some sort of conference that three hugs a day could make someone happy, and she was sure that if Kyoko is willing to commit suicide she must be depressed—but Kyoko wasn’t fooled._

_Kyoko looked at Homura with sagging shoulders and sighed, as she turned around in the other girl’s arms to face her—cuts on her cheeks dripping blood onto Homura’s hands, that she could hardly be bothered to care about._

_“Sakura-san, please don’t do this! You- you don’t know what you’re doing! You’re not in your right mi-mi-mind. You’re still injured from the last Witch you fought, and haven’t healed yourself! It’s one thing to plan to die, but what if you have to fight Miki-san before you can let all those people go?! This could lead to you being tortured, Sakura-san! P-p-please reconsider.”_

_When Homura looked back on that event in the future, she would recall that it had, perhaps, been the first time her thoughts had turned so morbid, that she would think so lowly of Miki Sayaka… and that she would possibly be okay with Sakura Kyoko’s death—if there was no choice to the matter—but just didn’t want her to suffer needlessly beforehand._

_It was also, perhaps, the only time that Homura hadn’t been putting Madoka first. Maybe, anyway… she could hardly recall the earlier years of her purgatory anymore._

_But what Homura remembered the most about that moment—and perhaps this was why she was dreaming about this now—was the way that Kyoko looked at her with the kind of resigned, yet peaceful, look that Madokami would eventually give her, as Kyoko pushed her away, held onto her shoulders for just a second, and then disappeared behind the train’s closing doors._

_Over the roar of the engine and all the people around her, Homura had just barely been able to make out what Kyoko had said to her then, but she made sure that she caught it. And then when she did, she promised herself she would always remember this about Kyoko._

_Maybe not other things—and maybe not even for very long or very meaningfully, for when she died wouldn’t her memories of Kyoko die with her?—but she would at least know this for as long as she breathed air:_

_“Don’t stop me, Homura. I know you’re doin’ wha’chu think’s best, girl scout. Hell, you’re even doin’ the kind of touchy-feely stuff you’d learn at an insane asylum, maybe, to help me now and I do somewhat ‘ppreciate it…_

_“Anyway, I lost myself too much in my own life. And that’s my own fault. I ain’t gonna pretend it’s any other way, but Sayaka helped me remember who I am. And even if I lived a hundred years now, I couldn’t reach the girl I used to be. Not that I’d even_ wanna _live that long._

_“But I’m thinkin’ that maybe me dyin’ would set everything right. I could do somethin’ good with this stupid curse from Kyubey, and maybe balance the scales of justice myself for her. Don’t get in my way when it comes to that, Homura. Don’t.”_

_And as if to prove to Homura then that she was still very much herself, Kyoko punched through the glass window just for a way to throw a grape lollipop the other girl’s direction, before the locomotive started carrying her away, for she had acted just as the engine had started and they veered off before she could be thrown out of the vehicle for her vandalism._

_That had been the last time that Homura had seen Kyoko in that world, and how she’d cried for her many times after it—maybe as much as she even had for Madoka that time._

_Homura even still had that grape sucker in her buckler somewhere, as she’d never been able to bring herself to eat it or get rid of the thing._

_If this Kyoko knew that—and apparently she did have all her memories… what a strange thing to think about; it had only ever been Madoka and Miki Sayaka that had held onto all their recollections of Homura—she’d no doubt hate her for wasting the food._

Waking up in her bed bolt right, something she actually hadn’t done since her first day in this new universe, Homura found that she was suddenly hating herself for not letting Kyoko know that she would’ve died this time if her soul had remained lost again.

Kyoko, after all, was perhaps a happy medium between the light that Homura could never have—Madoka—and herself.

She was maybe even more pure than Miki Sayaka, as—despite her bravado—Kyoko had never done anything that was too bad, and she always retained her sanity and found herself again through that girl that she loved and then acted accordingly.

In fact, it had been because of Kyoko’s words back then that Homura had ended up on that skyscraper overlooking the city, when Madoka had made herself disappear and she’d been at a complete loss at what to do then.

Homura had been thinking about how she and Madoka had first met at that time: Madoka had used magic to let her new friend excel in gym class—and to feel as though she was flying when she pole vaulted—and so at her new beginning without Madoka, Homura had looked for high ground once again and had reminded herself of the city that her best friend had wanted to protect.

Homura owed Kyoko for that, at least, she decided as sweat ran down her face and she held her head in her hands, feeling the worst migraine she could’ve ever imagined.

But really she owed her for so much more.

…

So Homura decided to go to school the next day. She still wasn’t sure what this world had cut out for her, and even if she wanted to see it, but she would at least go to see Sakura Kyoko—as Homura had a feeling that Tomoe Mami would pester the girl and force her to go to Mitakihara middle school today—so that she could say that there was at least one day in her life that she moved forward hoping to see not only Madoka alive, but also Kyoko.

It was… strange, Homura found, to be able to get to school in a timely fashion and not have to rush in order to enact all the millions of plans she had in her head to battle Walpurgisnacht.

And perhaps she should’ve been worrying even now. The Wraiths were still around and a threat, weren’t they? And Homura herself was still somewhat a Magical Girl, somehow.

If she wanted to hold off on succumbing to despair, and joining the Law of Cycles earlier than intended, she should’ve been gathering Grief Cubes.

But she couldn’t bring herself to care about even that. So she skipped to school pretty merrily—feeling good that most of the ground was dry now, as Walpurgisnacht and its rain had actually been dealt with long ago, hadn’t it?—and she found herself wondering if it had been Grief Cubes she’d been using this whole time without realizing it. Had Mami used her impressive magic to make them appear to be Grief Seeds? Probably.

Homura was crossing a bridge now—a bridge she was pretty sure she’d been on when she’d caused Tomoe Mami’s teacup to break before, her when she’d allowed one of Kyoko’s apples to fall into the stream.

Back then, she’d been trying so hard to cause some “hurt” in the girls’ lives, as she knew that one needed it in order to grow, but had been sick of all of their true suffering and had really just been doing gags that no one would notice or be effected by at all… just how insane she’d been?

…And maybe it was only natural that Madoka should approach her on said bridge now—with her eyes absolutely blazing—as she started jogging towards her.

If Homura looked close enough, she noted that there seemed to be a gold glint to Madoka’s eyes as the girl charged at her.

They weren’t truly gold, as they were when she was Madokami, but they weren’t exactly pink anymore, either. Perhaps the best way to refer to them was that they were “orange”?

Madoka was almost to Homura’s face now, and with the speed in which she was coming in, Homura knew that she herself would topple backwards and into the slight water behind her when Madoka hit her, but not once did Homura move to protect herself or fight back.

She’d done enough of that when she’d killed Madoka last time, hadn’t she?

And though Homura didn’t so much have an affinity for Madoka anymore—as she _had_ murdered her, and thus Homura’s earlier fear about Madoka proving herself to be not as good as she had thought, which would fill her with regret, had proved true, then—she just didn’t want to hurt her or cause her any more pain.

…And apparently Madoka didn’t want to do anything like that, either. She stopped her run, her shoes skidding on the pavement as she did so so abruptly, and her fist shot out not to strike Homura, but to… let loose some of her own strands of hair in the wind?

“Madoka?” Homura asked confused, feeling as though there was something very obvious she should’ve been getting from this but wasn’t.

Madoka sighed, put her hands on her hips, and peered into her face to try and help her understand—Homura assumed—but she seemed aggravated to have to do so.

She seemed in no mood to be around her at all.

“Catch it out of the wind if you want to, _Homura_ ,” and for the first time that the former time traveler could remember, Madoka used absolutely no honorific with her name.

At once, Homura felt as though she’d been slapped. It wasn’t as though Madoka was trying to be cruel to her, however, Homura noted—even while she herself blanched for it, anyway—but perhaps trying to hint at how unmannerly and assuming it had been of _her_ to use Madoka’s name for so many years without an honorific attached to it.

Madoka had clearly been able to overlook it in the past—as she’d loved her so much and so strongly for a number of years; Homura knew that she did—but now she was past that, and after everything that had transpired between them… Madoka saw just being called “Madoka” by her as disrespectful.

Once again, Homura was losing to—and being replaced—by Miki Sayaka and she hated it, but this time Madoka having all of her memories was the cause of it and not the solution to it.

A crowd was growing around the two girls now, and as Madoka’s shoulders hunched—and she momentarily seemed to get nervous, before pinching herself to snap herself out of it… right; the original Madoka had been more active and the later Madokas more passive because of Homura’s own wish, and now Madoka seemed desperate to be more in control again—she explained the rest of the riddle to Homura:

“I feel like my hair, oddly enough, is all you seemed to care about in the end, Homura-chan,” the pinkette seemed to stick in the honorific for old time’s sake. It alone was almost enough to send Homura reeling and she almost clonked her head on the railing behind her—Madoka instigating it or not.

She… she was talking of matters in the past and didn’t think there was a future for them at all anymore, did she?

“Or rather, the me you thought you knew who always wore those red ribbons. Welp, I’m sick of my old hair and I’m sick of ribbons, Homura-chan. For that matter, I’m not too fond of braids, either… I’m tired of being reset to the basest version of me that you think is right. So I’m turning over a new leaf now, but if you want what’s left of my old locks you can have it.”

There was absolutely no acid in Madoka’s tone at all, and perhaps that was what was the worst thing about it. It was almost as though she couldn’t be moved to feel anything for her anymore, Homura thought bitterly.

Perhaps it was only fair, because she herself had treated the other Magical Girls—and everyone else—like this for far too long, which had led to her obsession with Madoka and the biggest problem that either of them had ever had to face.

Madoka was walking away now and towards the school, which surprised Homura. She had assumed that the goddess would have right away wanted to go back to her rightful place in the universe, but she clearly wasn’t doing that.

Idly, Homura had to wonder why that was—if she was just going to say goodbye to some of her loved ones before she left, or if she’d worked something out with Tomoe Mami—but she knew that if she tried to ask her about it she wouldn’t answer.

Turning on her heel just once, Madoka smiled brightly and became the girl that Homura had known and adored, and who had comforted her the first time against Walpurgisnacht and the last.

“I’m really glad that Mami-san was able to save you, Homura-chan. She tells me that you’re doing better here, and going back to the nice girl I used to know. That’s good. I’ll see you in the Law of Cycles then, Homura-chan, and I hope this time it won’t be something you fight against.

“Oh, and I know it wasn’t you who sent me back to the beginning this time, so at least ‘thanks’ for that.”

And then she was gone, walking the rest of the way into the building with Saotome sensei, who had just come up to tell her that Junko had called her and told her about Madoka’s new haircut, and just how cute Madoka looked with it.

Madoka seemed to be frowning some, however. Perhaps their teacher’s mentioning of her mother had gotten her thinking about how her father was a Magical Boy, and just what that might mean.

But Homura didn’t want to think about that right now. Instead, she thought about just Madoka (old habits died hard).

She _did_ look cute, Homura admitted to herself, even while the vile part of her that was still Akuma Homura wanted to snatch her strands of hair out of the sky and force them back onto the girl somehow.

Her bangs where curly now, but at times looked spikier than anything. Her hair now resembled somewhere between a buzz cut and a bob. It was much shorter than a bob, but there was more hair left on her head than a buzz cut would have provided. There was just a little bit of hair that stuck up and covered her entire head, with the cut ending before it even reached the nape of her neck.

But despite Madoka’s bravado about not wearing ribbons anymore, there seemed to at least be a violet rubber band stuck in a piece of her hair—whether it was intentional or not—and Homura, for the first time in so long, found herself sobbing.

 _‘Homura-chan’_ , Madokami had said what felt like a lifetime ago. _‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I think you had good intentions for me, maybe, but… If I just ignored this, other Magical Girls might smash each other’s Soul Gems. Homura-chan, I can’t believe you’re allowing some of them to die, without becoming a part of the Law of Cycles, by destroying their Soul Gems and just leaving their souls hanging! It’s not right. And I’m sorry for this—I’m so sorry—but I’ll fight you go get things back to the way they should be, if I have to!’_

It was funny… Mami had something similar to her just yesterday, hadn’t she? Something along the lines of “If I’d Just Ignored This”, but in a way that was completely different and far nicer than Madoka’s own.

Perhaps Homura had only saved Madoka—as none of this would’ve been possible if she herself hadn’t created that girl’s karmic destiny, she thought defiantly—but she’d still lost her in the end.

…

In the end, Homura was one who’d put her feelings aside to continue the fight many a time in the past, and getting herself together, she decided that that was exactly what she was going to do now.

Sakura Kyoko, as Homura had expected, was in Saotome-san’s classroom and the former Magical Girl had to wonder if it was the outfit she’d worn during Homulily’s affairs somehow, or if it was something that Tomoe Mami had given her. No doubt the latter.

But Homura had barely gotten a foot over the threshold when Kyoko was suddenly upon her. This surprised Homura greatly, as she knew well that Sakura Kyoko was hardly a touchy-feely person at all—she had said so herself, hadn’t she?

And though Homura understood that Kyoko _was_ doing what she was now because she had worried about her and did care, Homura had to wonder if she was also somewhat trying to harm her, as her nails were digging sharply into her shoulders and she had run into her so surely that Homura had almost fallen to the floor with the weight of the other girl.

“You moron, Piglet!” Kyoko hissed, which surprised Homura greatly because Kyoko usually only acted this way with one Miki Sayaka. “I talked to Nakazawa and he said you didn’ go to see him at all last night. You liar! You could’ve been tryin’ to commit suicide again for all I knew. Ugh. I hate you, girl. I hate you!”

Ugh. Homura was having attention drawn to her _again_ today and she hated it, but for a new reason this time…

It was true that Homura had usually somewhat liked attention on her first day at this school, back when she’d try to put Madoka in her place for her own safety—usually in that one hallway—but now...

Now Homura was devastated because Kyoko’s lips were close to her cheek—and she found that she… somehow wanted them there—but she knew they never would be; as Kyoko’s heart belonged to the girl she’d been talking on the phone with just days earlier when she’d been furious at Homura herself.

Homura had absolutely no agency in Kyoko’s heart of hearts, she knew, and it was probably best not to think otherwise.

And she wasn’t going to fall in love and get obsessed again. Instead, she was going to merrily eat some of the crab rangoon and egg rolls that Nakazawa was now bringing up to her, perhaps having heard how she liked McDonald’s nuggets (though also had issues with them) and maybe realized that the deep fried skin on these items was much like those to her?

After she had—somewhat shortly—told Sakura Kyoko to leave her alone and to go bother Miki Sayaka instead… Who still seemed missing, trying to get her Soul Gem back, it seemed…

And after she’d dealt sweetly with Nakazawa, and saw respect and interest for her in his eyes—even after what she’d nearly done to Madoka’s father in front of him, that he maybe subconsciously remembered—Homura had had a somewhat decent day.

She had actually taken the time to do her school work today, and for once was actually fully paying attention to it and somewhat enjoying it.

…She hadn’t done this at first, but once Miki Sayaka had, in the past, suggested that she use her time magic to stop the flow of it and cheat off her fellow classmates, or her teacher… Homura hadn’t been able to deny the benefit of doing so when the hourglass had tipped against her more and more.

And so, because of Miki Sayaka, she had ended up being a terrible, lying student sometimes.

Not always, because most of the stuff she just had memorized after doing what she had for so long. But still… when it came deception, like everything else, Homura wasn’t at all sinless.

And so Homura was actually liking being a straight-shooter for once. She chewed on her pencil’s eraser most of the day, and thought long and hard about her answers. Especially when it came to certain grammar tests.

As for Madoka, Homura tried not to pay much attention to her at all.

…

As Homura began walking home from school—and yes, she was walking; despite how much faster it would’ve been, she didn’t even think about flying now; not now that she understood where that power had come from—she was still feeling somewhat okay, at least.

She made sure not to walk the way she once had with Madoka, when talking about the deceased Tomoe Mami, and so she was enjoying the path.

There were some fishies jumping out of a stream beside her and Homura was glad they were there; they were so much better than the bugs Tomoe Mami had been entertaining in that meadow earlier.

She should’ve known that her happiness could never last.

Well, I have to say, Akemi Homura: it was no easy thing tricking you—believe me, I know that more than anyone—but I’m so glad I was finally able to manage it.

Homura sighed, as Kyubey appeared out of nowhere and started keeping step with her. He was being far too chipper as he walked beside her and Homura was reminded of a cat carrying a toy in its mouth cheerily, with its head held high.

The girl very much wanted to ignore him (she certainly didn’t want to kill or torture him, oddly enough, as that was a plan that had also led her to her awful Akuma Homura days), but she at least wanted to shut him up somehow.

“What are you talking about, Incubator? If this is somehow about Madoka—err… Madoka-chan—it doesn’t interest me anymore. For once, her and my destiny are no longer linked. So if you have something to say, you might as well take it up with he-”

Oh, I’m not talking about Kaname Madoka. I’m smart and can keep up with things, too, you know. And as I’ve slowly woken up in this timeline, I’ve been planning. This is about you, Akemi Homura. You’re doomed, it would seem. Or maybe not… If you sacrifice yourself for this world.

That got Homura’s attention. She skidded to a halt, and had to resist the urge to pick up a fish to hold in her hands so she could feel _something_ one last time.

…She got the feeling that she wouldn’t be living long, as she tried to piece the whole story together and failed somewhat.

“What are you talking abou-”

Except she knew, didn’t she? The purple “snow” they’d all been seeing lately, it wasn’t snow at all. Rather, it was the pieces of her Soul Gem she’d shattered long ago! The very pieces that Miki Sayaka, Shizuki Hitomi, and now Kamijo Kyosuke were currently looking for.

But since more and more of it was appearing, and landing on Mitakihara, if it continued, it would draw this place into her Labyrinth again!

Kyubey, seeming to see that Homura had the right of it as she took in a deep, shuddering breath, stretched tiredly (apparently he _had_ been hard at work in order to come up with this) and explained just where her thoughts had left off at:

There’s only one way for you to stop it: go into the place it’s creating yourself and order it to stop, as you’re the master of that Barrier. But since only part of its being recreated only you can fit in there. And if you do, and stay there forever to stop it from taking over the city, you’ll never be part of the Law of Cycles. You could just ignore it and let everyone here die, as all you Magical Girls would be saved by Kaname Madoka’s system, but you can’t condemn people like her parents who have nowhere to go, can you?

Just a few days ago, Homura had gladly been willing to let Madoka’s father die for Madoka’s own safety.

But now, as she’d somewhat been finding her old self again and the girl that had Contracted to protect people to begin with, she couldn’t even imaging letting innocents die.

Crying again, and purposefully falling into the wide lake below her, Homura focused on the nice feeling of it—the fish swimming curiously all around her—and the warmth that somehow lingered in the water, even in the rest of the cold world.

She would sacrifice herself. There was nothing else to do.

But she’d also freeze for all eternity in that place, because if she collected up the rest of her Gem, and opened up her Labyrinth just enough to fit into it and separate it from Mitakihara… Yuma’s wish for things to be “warmer” wouldn’t effect it, and thus the opposite would happen and it would be a land of winter.

Chitose Yuma had wished for things to be warmer in this world, but the problem was that Homura and Homulily didn’t belong in it at all and now she was seeing the consequences of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I somewhat lied to you all. This story has taken place after Rebellion the entire time. Or after the sequel to Rebellion, I should say, though I actually came up with this whole story before The Concept Movie was announced.
> 
> Anyway, I think most everything should be clear for you guys now, but if not feel free to shoot me a question.
> 
> And if you’re wondering how Mami was able to revive Kyoko and not Nagisa, it’s like how Kyoko and Mami were able to come back to life in Madoka’s world: since Witches never existed, they of course couldn’t have been killed by one. So Mami went back in time and stopped Kyubey from ever doing what he was with Hyades Daybreak last chapter, and thus Kyoko never got killed by her.
> 
> Nagisa, on the other hand, was not killed by a Witch. She was killed by something that Mami was allowing Homura to think was a Witch that wasn’t—that she herself created, but that got out of her control—and thus she couldn’t do the same thing for Nagisa. She’s also bound by the words of Madoka’s wish. Madoka wished for “the power to erase Witches before they’re born”, not for the power to erase things that aren’t Witches at all before they’re born. Make sense? 
> 
> But it’s all good, because Nagisa’s chilling in the Law of Cycles in Mami’s soul right now… even if Mami somewhat wishes she could be in Mitakihara with her, helping her out, but alas.
> 
> Also, trust me MadoHomu fans. I’m not ruining/abandoning your ship. This WILL end pleasantly for you all in the end, but please just give it some time:) There will be some slight, one-sided KyoHomu now (on Homura’s side), but the pairings are still MadoHomu and KyoSaya, don’t you worry.
> 
> Also, I hope some of you were able to pick up some hints I’ve put into this story up until now! For instance, in the chapter with Kyosuke and Madoka bonding, the two of them are playing Final Fantasy XIII-2… A story where the pink-haired heroine, with eyes that sometimes glow gold, sacrifices herself to save the world and then hugs her sister one last time after she’s dead, and tells her that she has no regrets. That was a hint that Madoka was starting to remember when she was Madokami and had been in a similar scene with Homura;) But there have been all kinds of hints about what was really going on throughout this story, like the fact that Madoka seemed to be irritated with her ribbons for some reason and kept changing them.
> 
> Oh, btw, Mami’s goddess form is somewhat based on a picture of Christine Daaé that TheDrawingDuke on Tumblr drew of their version of her from the musical. I can put a link to it on my profile, if you guys want… There are a lot of Phantom of the Opera references in this chapter, but I think it works, tbh (Erik and Homura and Christine and Madoka have their similarities, I mean), and Homura loves ballet but I’m pretty sure she’d be tired of the Nutcracker and Swan Lake at this point, if you get what I’m saying, so the ballet section in Phantom it was.
> 
> And I must apologize for this chapter being so late! I’m doing a writing contest right now where I have to write twelve stories this summer, so that’s part of the reason (though the person heading the contest up was kind enough to allow me to let this count for it, otherwise the update would’ve been even later), and I also didn’t know how I wanted to approach this chapter at all. I’m still not really sure how sufficient it is, but hopefully you guys were able to enjoy it (and to finally understand why this story is called “If I Just Ignored This”).
> 
> Anyway, shutting up now! Thank you for all your amazing support! See you guys next time!
> 
> -Shanna


	6. No More Selfishness in Selflessness

**Madoka’s PoV**

 Madoka sat on her bed in her room, resisting the urge to cry.

It wasn’t so much that she was against what Mami-san was doing (rather, Madoka recalled begging her for help in her last moments; and she was more than thankful that her Senpai had answered the call)… but Mami had everything so perfect now, that Madoka almost found herself not wanting to return to her goddess self at all.

She wanted to stay with her family, if for a moment longer.

But this was a problem for two reasons:

One, because Madoka was tired of being passive and feeling useless.

And two, if she relished in this new world (though a different one from Homura-chan… No, Akemi-san’s own), wouldn’t that mean that Akemi-san had somewhat been right all along?

Madoka shook her head at this—and fingered her new haircut to orient her new self—and tried to best figure out when she should give up the ghost, as it were.

Also… Madoka got the strange sense that something was terribly wrong, as she dug her knees into her mattress—not completely unlike what she had done when Kyubey had first told her his version of the truth.

The world was in danger, Madoka realized at once.

She had no idea how it was now balancing so precariously, but she knew for certain that it was.

 _I should stop being selfish_ , Madoka thought, standing up and going to her computer—looking at it wistfully, as she remembered when she’d been looking up sporks for Tatsuya on it before. 

_I need to retake my rightful place in this multiverse, and make sure that everything’s still in top form. I’ve been away for too long, and I need to relieve Mami-san, and even somewhat Homura-chan, of her burden._

Decision made, Madoka went to her window—preparing to escape from it again, like she had had to to get to Sayaka-chan when she’d been fighting Kyoko-chan that time, but in a much bigger way this time—when Madoka felt her control on the planet almost give way entirely.

Arms wrapped around her midsection in pain—whilst she crumpled to the ground—Madoka breathed heavily, as she searched through all of her memories (memories that she had about all of time now), that maybe could’ve explained this, but nothing came.

Madoka was absolutely miserable.

Mitakihara was going to die once again, and the goddess’ tie to the universe itself was also waning, and it…

It felt like she herself was again perishing.

And without belonging in this place that she had helped create, did she really exist at all?

Madoka had met a Magical Girl named Christy once, who had become a part of the Law of Cycles, and she had wished for one of her former friends to have an unnatural hair color that she hated.

This was because the girl’s friend had started ignoring her after some church event, for whatever the reason, and so Christy had wanted revenge on her for breaking her heart.

But in the end, Christy had fallen into despair: It was because she’d lost her best friend for good with her wish, that Hannah had eventually found about.

Christy had truly wanted Hannah’s cruelness after that fated gathering to melt away, but her temporary desire for revenge had made her wish for the wrong thing. And she’d even hurt her dear companion in her shortsightedness.

When Madoka had ended up saving Christy from herself, she had promised her that she’d be every bit the friend to her that Hannah had once been.

And that she’d even somewhat ease her left behind friend’s suffering, by making hair colors like purple a bit more common, so that Hannah wouldn’t feel like a complete freak.

It had been bound to happen eventually, after all—Madoka’s own pink locks were proof of people’s eventual desire for the weird, but such an ideal wasn’t meant to be set into place for a while: until someone else’s wish.

But Madoka had seen no harm in somewhat starting that process early, all over the world, to appease Christy.

Madoka missed the shorthaired youth, actually, and she missed the connection she had with Earth.

If she… If she didn’t have power to do this stuff anymore, and to influence the beautiful world the way that it had her, then who was she?

 _Just what is going on?_ Madoka despairingly thought.

And she was even about to turn into her Magical Girl self, to go out and investigate.

But then Tatsuya was opening up his sister’s door—and helping her up, and asking her to play with him via water guns.

Madoka was about to protest, but then Tatsuya had assured her that he meant to play inside—in her room, even—and not in the freezing cold outside.

This ended up winning Madoka over—for if she was going to have to give up Tatsuya again soon, then she wanted to make every moment with him count.

The eldest sibling grabbed her brother by his torso, as she tickled his arms and blew raspberries onto his neck—all the while that the little boy delightedly tried to get away from her.

…And maybe there was even another reason that Madoka had said yes to Tatsuya’s plea:

Because she’d lost someone dear to her who had used real guns, hadn’t she? And so now she was somewhat living vicariously through her kid brother.

_Homura-chan… I really don’t know what to think of you anymore._

_On one hand… I remember the time when you convinced me not to get a bow like Katniss Everdeen’s before I became a Magical Girl._

_I know now, that if you hadn’t stopped me then, when I’d been approached by Kyubey—offering me a bow and arrow that I wanted—I would’ve ended up thinking The Hunger Games were real, and would have made a crazy series of events happen, in wishing that TV be banned from the world then._

_I thank you for stopping me then, Homura-chan… And for much else, of course._

_But then- Then I think about how you tore me in two, and every awful thing that came after it…_

_Or when you kept me drugged and in your care for an entire loop, so that I couldn’t make a wish, and I- and I…_

_And I hate you. I wish you well. I really do, Homura-chan, but I also greatly despise you._

_But there’s so much good, too!_

_And perhaps in realizing that—and that you’re somehow connected in all of this that’s going on now—that’s why I want to save you now, and begin anew, Homura-chan._

_I remember all the times you held my hair back when I threw up as I learned the truth about Magical Girls, I mean._

_And when you’d go out to get me grape soda in such times, since it seems I’m the only one who seems to get cured by that when I feel nauseous._

_I remember, Homura-chan. I remember all of it, and I will fight for you._

Raising the water gun in her hand, Madoka shot her brother with some of the H20 as he laughed at her.

And Madoka had no idea at all… That pretty soon one person would be getting that same liquid on their clothes, and that it would stay there as they froze to death.

**Sayaka’s PoV**

Sayaka wasn’t very happy that she and Hitomi had ended up failing in their endeavor.

And that was even before what was left of Homura’s Soul Gem, and old Labyrinth, began taking on a life of its own.

But before all of that began occurring, Kyosuke that ended up being able to unearth a lot of the Transfer Student’s soul to put into a container.

And it was no easy thing to do so, because a lot of it was still stuck to the remnants of Homura’s Lair and wouldn’t let go for the life of it…

Or would just fall to the ground, seeming like snow, as it tried to move away and reform Homulily ideas elsewhere.

On many occasion, Sayaka had just wanted to pull out her sword and destroy the microscopic pieces into something even less threatening, and finally nab them that way and glue them together if it came down to it.

But then Kyosuke had shown up, and had actually been able to get a bit of Homura to cooperate with him.

Not a lot, but a little.

And so Sayaka and Hitomi had worked on alongside him, baring their teeth all the way.

“I don’t get why you’re having an easier time than we are, Kyosuke,” Sayaka had admitted one day, thinking that she’d have better luck finding a needle in a needle stack than doing this.

She wanted to be like Kyoko, sitting on a pile of Grief Seeds (or pieces of Homura’s Soul Gem, in this instance), proving that she’d been successful in her endeavors, but so far there were no dice.

Kyosuke had shrugged at that, as he’d found a piece behind an out of the way tumble weed (for they sure as hell weren’t in the old west, but in a place cluttered with greenery… so why in the world was there a tumble weed here again?) and put it into his Easter basket that he’d enlisted for this particular job.

“I assume that’s because they keep trying to suck you and Hitomi-chan back into the Labyrinth, and so you have to put them back down before they can do that. But as for why I don’t have that problem? I assume it’s because Akemi-san doesn’t want me in her world as much, so it’s less of a risk for me.”

In the end, Sayaka hadn’t really been able to deny that—as she subconsciously began trying to figure out why they were looking for Homura’s old Soul Gem, that she’d shattered over the Earth, instead of the second one she’d kind of created when she’d stolen Madoka’s powers—for Homura  _had_ made Kyosuke a barely-there-jerk in her dream world, but she still felt bad admitting it.

And it was while Sayaka was having such thoughts, that Hitomi had seemed to sense something.

Sayaka hadn’t really been surprised, as Hitomi had always been pretty sharp—she alone had pretty much guessed Homura’s relationship to Madoka from day one in the last timeline—and the times she was a Magical Girl only heightened this.

“There’s something wrong,” Hitomi had said, looking up towards something in the sky that she couldn’t see. “Do either of you notice that whenever the Soul Gem shards try to pull on Sayaka-san and me, and we then both put them down, that instead of falling back to where they came from—to tempt us once more—they fly up far in the air? They’re going somewhere and reforming the Labyrinth. I would be willing to put money on it.

“What’s left of Homulily is trying to trick us—to make us think that the worst is over, when our own souls are done being pulled at. But that is a lie, only meant to give us a false sense of ease as the real act unfolds.

“In fact, I’m afraid, Sayaka-san, that the power in us may be  _giving_ the shards power to do this. We never should’ve been doing this! We should have been letting Kyosuke-kun do so, and no one else!”

And so the unlikely trio had gotten back to Mitakihara as fast as they could manage.

Sayaka had been able to sense that Hitomi was right—and the coldness she’d been feeling all around her lately had only added to that feeling; Homura’s world, and Homura’s soul itself in a lot of ways, was freezing—and Sayaka knew that if Homulily was still conscious somewhere, she’d be lured back to Mitakihara and Madoka, and only there.

The moment Sayaka made it back to her school, she saw where the Eternal Repeat world was starting to try and take over again, and she growled.

She didn’t blame Homura for it this time—or at least she didn’t think that she did—but it sucked that where this was now happening was exactly where Sayaka had had her first true encounter with Akuma Homura.

It was giving Sayaka bad memories, in thinking about the time Homura had been drinking that Soul Gem beverage, and then trying to drown herself in it, via her guilt.

And Sayaka found that she very strongly wanted to slap Homura; not for her actions now, but for her actions back then.

Hitomi and Kyosuke bid Sayaka adieu—as they went into the school to see if anyone else saw what was happening, and to try and decide if they should get them to shelter.

 _I need to see if Madoka’s figured out what’s going on yet_ , Sayaka decided—just as she pulled out her Crystal and planned to power up.  _I need to get to her as fast as I can, and that means using the super powers that Kyubey gave me… Even if part of me would rather not use them at all._

There was lightning flashing outside of the other dimension now, and Sayaka breathed heavily—wondering if some of those strikes could maybe latch onto people and pull them into the Labyrinth.

She didn’t think so—as in her time as Homulily, only Homura’s best friends, Kyosuke, Hitomi, Nagisa, and Madoka’s parents had been there—but she wasn’t completely positive about it, either.

Nearly deciding that Madoka could wait, and that she needed to contend with the thunder on the bridge leading to the school, Sayaka reached out a hand to touch one of the blasts when they showed again, but something stopped her.

“Stop her, Miki-san!” Sayaka heard Mami shouting, as the older girl came running her way.

She wasn’t in her Puella Magi outfit, so Sayaka assumed that what Mami-san was doing had nothing to do with Homura right now, and she was right.

Yuma was trying to duck into a side entrance at Mitakihara middle school now, and Kyubey was in her arms.

Sayaka didn’t for the life of her know what was going on, and she frowned at that.

Catching up to Sayaka—and hunching over for a moment, so that she could catch her breath—Mami whispered to the bluenette in a deadly tone, “Yuma-chan thinks that she’s found a way to make Kyubey good, and I know—through the limited omniscience that I have right now—that if she attempts that, she’s going to fail and only make awful things happen. We need to stop her.”

And having seen the look of resolve that had passed over Yuma’s face, Sayaka moved to help Mami with the whole ordeal—hoping that it would be over soon, and that they then could get to helping Homura.

**Kyoko’s PoV**

Kyoko, if she was being honest with herself, was slightly annoyed to see Sayaka paling around with the boy who had broken her heart one too many times, as well as the Green Girl.

She knew she was being irrational—as she headed to Mitakihara middle school, just as soon as she sensed Sayaka’s magical presence there again—but even she’d done a ton of her own crimes in the alternate universes, Kyoko thought that Kyosuke and Hitomi’s towards Sayaka were the worst sins of all.

She was probably biased, though.

And she supposed that if nothing else, at least they weren’t Homura…

It was as Kyoko was thinking this that she noticed Yuma appear out of the woodworks, carrying the Incubator in her arms with a look of desperation on her face.

And not too far behind her were Mami and Sayaka.

Kyoko was so glad to see her girlfriend back in town, that she almost went up to her just to whisper lewd comments—as she ignored Yuma completely—but she was too good an older sister to let such a thing pass.

And so she jumped down from the lamppost she’d been standing on, landing in a crouch—and let the gummy she’d been sucking on slide down her throat—before red diamonds marked her change, and she darted forward with her spear in hand in order to move faster.

All around her, students who’d been passing her by shuffled to the side nervously when Kyoko got close to them.

The redhead was of half a mind to laugh at them for it, but then she recalled the completely out there world that Homura had created—the one that even she herself had been scared of, that these kids were probably unknowingly remembering now: as they stood close to where the entrance to it had once been—and she thought better of it.

As Kyoko flew into the educational building—brandishing her massive spear up in the air, like one Cloud Strife had done in meeting Rufus ShinRa again in Advent Children—she weaved past Sayaka and Mami with little to no effort on her part, and swept Yuma up in her arms and began tickling her.

“Okay, Kid,” she whispered into her surrogate daughter’s ear, as the girl still held onto Kyubey for the life of her. “You mind tellin’ me wha’chu doin’ with the Incubator? Y’know he’ll pull you faster into Hell with each word that he says, so why trust him? Gimme one reason why I shouldn’t dissect him here and now, and save us all the trouble that’s about to go down.”

Sayaka seemed like she was about to say something to that, as she slowly walked forward.

And knowing her as Kyoko did, she guessed that it would’ve been about how she  _shouldn’t_  hurt Kyubey, otherwise she’d be acting just like Akuma Homura had with him, and frankly… Kyoko already knew she was enough like that demon, and it scared her.

She didn’t mind being like human Homura. That was no issue (though Kyoko prayed to the God she still somewhat believed in that she wasn’t as dorky as all that), but bearing any kind of relation to the devil herself? Yeah, no thank you...

The Incubator, seeming to finally notice that Yuma was distracted enough for him to hop away from her, jumped down to the ground and licked his paw.

And Kyoko bared her canines at him, knowing that whenever the bastard got nonchalant like this, only bad things could come.

I’m just as surprised as all of you are that Chitose Yuma still seems to think she has any power over me at all. The girl seems to think that she can make me have emotions and a conscience like the lot of you, but I’m afraid that she’s sadly mistaken. And while you all waste your time with this, you’re ignoring the Wraiths getting ready to crush you at any moment. I fear that your new goddess has become lax in fighting them, for she’s much too focused on all of this right now and maintaining a human life.

At that, Sayaka walked forward and gave Kyubey a withering look. She put her elbow on Kyoko’s shoulder and leaned on her.

She was so close, that Kyoko thought she was probably about to lean forward and kiss her on the cheek, and honestly? Kyoko wouldn’t have at all complained if she did.

But instead of doing that, Sayaka grabbed onto Mami’s hand to comfort the now thoroughly insulted girl, and Kyoko thought that that was a good thing to do, too.

“Heh. Thanks for the tip, Incubator. But you’ve miscalculated again. The Wraiths can’t possibly mean us harm. You may have missed it since you’ve been avoiding us in this universe, but Saotome-sensei actually knows about Magical Girls here… Somewhat.

“If we told her what was at stake, she’d probably let all of us use her classes to fight the things. Even our classmates, and Hitomi and Kyosuke would be at the front of the line.

“And we all know from Homura how the firearms they can get will do as much damage as we do. So if this is your super plan for revenge, you’d better think again.

“In fact, we’re right in front of her hallway now. Why don’t we got to her and test this little theory?”

“Yeah!” Kyoko piped up, taking Sayaka’s free hand in her own, as she meant to emulate the strong stance the two of them had made the last time they’d broken through Kyubey’s rule, and had nearly gotten Homura spirited away to the Law of Cycles. “I’ve been wantin’ to show what I can do more and more since I died recently, so get out of our way and let us do our damn job, before I cut you in half. You feel me, Kyubey?”

All of the students milling about in the halls seemed to be watching the group that was talking to an invisible Kyubey, warily.

Kyoko thought that the kids all probably assumed that they were doing a cosplay skit.

And despite her bravado, she was beginning to fear that none of them at all would help if they asked them to.

Perhaps there was another option, the-

“I don’t know,” Mami-san was suddenly saying, as she seemed to take in Kyubey’s overconfidence and Yuma’s now dejected looking face.

The woman’s eyes glowed brown for a moment, as she no doubt searched everything that she—and Madoka—knew to try and figure out the possible turn out to this. “Miki-san, I know what I said to you just a moment ago, but now I’m thinking we should let Chitose-chan try and do what she was attempting to do with Kyubey. She wished for ‘everything to be warmer’. Perhaps that could lend itself to making Kyubey better. Especially since she also has the power to hea-”

Mami had to cut her words off when Madoka’s mother, of all people (who Kyoko had met one or two times) ended up appearing on the scene.

She walked out of her friend’s classroom, and it was clear from the expression on the businesswoman’s face that she’d heard every word they’d been saying.

They hadn’t exactly been being quiet, Kyoko realized now. Herself especially.

In fact, she was kind of surprised they hadn’t ruptured many of the glass windows around them, with just how loud they’d been speaking.

Sidling up to her daughter’s friend (and the rest of them around her), Kaname Junko gave all of the Magical Girls a smile in turn, before she looked at the source of all of their problems: Kyubey.

“I don’t know what’s going on, girls,” she said, as she seemed to be sizing all of them up for some form of distress.

Kyoko tried to hide her own, sensing that this wouldn’t end well, but she wasn’t able to change the look on her face before it was too late.

“But if you’re really practicing with how to deal with a bully here, might I suggest you kick them where it hurts?”

And to demonstrate her point, Junko did exactly that. She reared her leg back, before moving it forward, so that it struck the invisible creature she didn’t even know was there and sent it flying.

Junko grimaced, no doubt wondering just what she had made contact with, since there was nothing before her as far as the eye could see.

To _her_ , anyway.

All four of the Puella Magi saw Kyubey flying towards the door on the opposite side of the hall, and Kyoko didn’t think she’d ever been any gladder in her life.

“Are you guys playing ball here, or something? What? Is there some kind of invisible ink that you used, that can actually make things disappear now?”

“That’s exactly it!” Yuma exclaimed, before any of the others could get their wits about them.

And seeing as how it was the youngest of the group that said this, that seemed to relax Junko toot sweet.

No doubt she now thought they’d been doing some sort of magic trick with the “ball” to entertain Yuma, and Junko smiled for that idea. “And thank you so much for everything, ma’am!”

Junko ruffled Yuma’s hair once, and fixed her backpack on her shoulder, before heading out the door that she’d just unknowingly sent Kyubey to.

“That woman sure is something,” Mami muttered, sending Kaname Junko’s retreating form an appraising look, as she no doubt thought of her own mother. “I can see where Kaname-san gets it from.”

Kyoko—who still remembered the time that Madoka had forced her to take a selfie with her, despite herself—couldn’t help but nod in agreement with Mami.

And it was only Yuma who seemed to notice that, once again… There was something wrong that needed to be fixed.

**Madoka’s PoV**

Madoka knew that her mama had actually taken the day off, and had gone to the school to see Sensei, but she had no idea at all why she’d left without her.

Goddess of the universe, and she still had these kinds of problems. Jeez.

 _It would’ve been great if mama could have woken me up early, and walked with me to school_ , the pinkette thought.

She could sense that a Wraith problem was growing nearby (how could she not? She’d been with Homura many a time in spirit, as the girl had fought the things before giving into despair).

So even in her human form, and her powers not being what she had grown used to them being, Madoka could sense the current problem… but she had a feeling that Mami-san couldn’t.

When Madoka latched onto her barely there connection with the world with all her might, and forced her eyes to gaze into the future, she could tell that Mami-san had become too focused on fixing whatever the Incubator had been planning with Hyades Daybreak and something going on with Yuma.

She didn’t realize that the Wraiths were getting out of control, and so Madoka knew it was left to her to do something about it.

 _I could get my abilities back and destroy them all with a thought_ , Madoka realized, as she walked over the pathway connecting the wooded area away from the school to the institution for learning itself (and found joy that there was no purple water beneath the bridge, to make her think of Walpurgisnacht). 

_But if I do that, then I could accidentally harm innocents._

_And what about…what about Homura-chan? If I go all out to defeat the Wraiths, will there be enough of me left to focus on what’s going on with her?_

_I don’t- I don’t understand everything now, but I think that if I create a blast like that… It’ll make her situation worse, and no doubt trap her in whatever’s pulling at her… forever._

Madoka summoned her magic, her eyes finally glistening gold again—it was a relief, that—and then she was teleporting to where she felt a plethora of Wraiths.

Madokami supposed what she was doing now was similar to how she could be multiple places at once when she needed to be.

Though now there were no various versions of herself in play, and she was just using her abilities to portal more than anything else.

Madoka actually felt kind of cheapened by it, actually—as she ended up in a Western set that had been erected in Mitakihara—because when she got back to doing things on big scales again, she had thought it would be more than just this.

But it was what it was.

Right now, there was a Wraith coming towards Madoka—its distortions eating up the land, as it towered over her—and she knew if she didn’t stop it now, it could cause the people around it to go mad and murder each other.

And so she got her bow and quiver into hand, and notched an arrow.

Madoka breathed heavily as the sand all around her feet tore into her knees, where her long dress skirt and leggings didn’t cover, and she almost lost her focus on her gigantic weapon.

But she had been doing this for far too long, thanks to Homura-chan’s meddling, and so she didn’t.

_I don’t- I don’t know how me fighting these things will hurt Homura-chan, but I want to avoid it at all cost. I’m hoping that when the arrow flies true, and nearly does its mission, my foresight will kick in and tell me. And hopefully I can bring the arrow back to my person if I need to, but I… I can’t stand back and do nothing, while these Wraiths prepare to destroy the entire city._

Her shortened hair as Madokami—now the length it had been when she’d been just Madoka—swished over Madoka’s back, and reassured her that she was finally a different person now: the one that she had always been meant to be.

She would not fail in this.

And so, she let the white balls of energy form into a casting circle, before they then dispersed and headed toward the Wraith that was aiming at her head with a big, white hand.

She had jumped into the air the way that Homura-chan had—when she’d been fighting the monsters here for the last time before giving up, though Madoka herself did not need wings to do so.

The deity kicked at the head of the Wraith she had nearly just eradicated, for good measure, but then she found herself being moved backwards against her will.

_A ribbon has been tied around me. Mami-san?! But why would she? …In any case, I guess this must be how Homura-chan’s felt in Mami-san doing this to her all the time._

Rolling to the ground—as she landed on there, and tried her damnest to rip herself out of one of Mami’s laces—Madoka ended up on her stomach, with her hands held beneath her chin to cradle it.

As she looked up now, Madoka could see that Mami herself had launched herself into the stratosphere—her skirt pulling up over her leggings, like a figure skater’s skort might have—and she was firing bullet after bullet towards what Madoka had done, to try and send portions of her power scattering elsewhere.

Madoka’s Senpai had tied herself to part of the disintegrating Wraith, so that she could maneuver herself however she needed to, to shoot at whatever she deemed threatening.

Madoka had just referred to Mami as an ice skater in her mind, but as she angrily began getting up to her feet, she realized that perhaps a better term for her was a “trapeze artist”—because it was those kinds of gracefully flips and twirls that she was doing all over the place now.

“Mami-san?” Madoka choked out, trying to use telekinesis to get her power back to where it needed to be to finish off the Wraith.

But as it happened, Mami was fighting her tooth and nail.

Despite the fact that Madoka had always looked up to and admired Mami greatly, she felt distrust beginning to fill up her senses at the thought of her now.

Had she- had she misjudged this so call friend, too?

And now that she’d gotten a taste of absolute power, did she have any intention of giving it back at all?

“What are you doing?!” Madoka shout out, temporarily giving up on fighting against the Wraith and Mami both, it seemed, as she questionably held out her hands in front of her.

The pinkette knew well that if this had been some kind of story, she never would have let her guard down around Mami-san and would have had her weapon leveled at her head… While Mami-san herself probably did the same thing.

But this wasn’t one of the fairytales that Madoka had used to cherish, and she was more confused than anything else, and she needed Mami to explain her betrayal to her.

“Why are you stopping me from defeating the Wraith? There are already twelve more coming on the horizon! And if we don’t stop them now, then Mitakihara will-”

“Because, Kaname-san! We need to defeat the Wraiths—yes, it’s true—but Bebe has contacted me and told me something neither one of us have been able to sense. If we use too much substance to fight, we may end up trapping Akemi-san forever!

“We’ll evaporate her Labyrinth that is trying to grow again, with her in it. And since we haven’t been able to save her Soul Gem, she’ll just die and be lost to the Law of Cycles forever!”

Madokami grimaced, as she took the two white ribbons out of her hair and lengthened them to tie the mostly-dead-Wraith in place.

So it was exactly as she’d feared and had begun to suspect, then.

Closing her eyes and focusing, Madoka tried to see if there was a way she could destroy the Barrier that Mami had told her about, without Homura being in it for her to do so.

She already knew the answer to that, didn’t she?

The only way that that place could ever truly go away, was if Homura—the Master of the Labyrinth—went in there and told it to do so little by little.

Homura had created the “Eternal Repeat” world to not only usurp her own position, Madoka now understood, but some of the others’ as well… Like Sayaka-chan and Bebe’s, who had had Madoka’s own powers at the time.

Another Wraith that was upon them now, nearly walked right through Madoka—so distracted was she—and she knew exactly what would have happened if it had succeeded: she would have lost her own mind, and probably would have been driven to the point of suicide.

And so to avoid that, Madoka had made herself ethereal—so that she escaped its touch completely, and was able to do a back roll away from it and onto her feet again.

Madoka grabbed hold of her bow once more, with blood dripping from her forehead now—for the Wraith had just clipped her with its nail when she’d made her body have a physical attribute again—and she tried to see if she could lessen her techniques at all, any way at all, so that she could finish her foes off for good, without destroying Homura in her Lair nearby with the excess energy.

“Kaname-san, you can’t!” Mami-san bellowed, once again twirling around a Wraith as she latched onto it and began shooting it any place that she could.

She, Madoka realized, wasn’t using her borrowed godhood to fight at all… and if five of the nightmares weren’t coming upon Mami from behind now, Madoka honestly thought she maybe could have defeated them all this way.

Maybe.

But as it stood, neither of them stood a chance in Hell like this.

It took five Magical Girls to defeat a Wraith, usually. And there certainly weren’t twenty-five of them now to combat the threat.

And the worst part of all was that Madoka knew without a shadow of a doubt that she could end this now if she wanted to… but Homura-chan-

“Kyubey planned all of this!” Madoka sobbed, almost deciding to go and find the Incubator and cry in front of it to try and change its mind.

Maybe Yuma had been right about being able to manipulate Kyubey, Madoka prayed—seeing the scene where Yuma had presented her idea playing in her head now.

“Mami-san, we have no choice! Give me back my power! It’s the only way! If we don’t do anything, Mitakihara’s going to be destroyed. Can’t you see that?!”

But the golden girl wouldn’t relent, as she bit her tongue against giving in and all the things she wanted to say, it seemed.

Mami, too, must have known that Madoka hated Homura too much now, and that if there was no other choice she’d throw her under the bus if she had to.

And Mami was too good a person to eliminate the girl, without giving her a chance—when Homura only ever shot her in the knee, even at her very worst.

Trying to feel if there were any other Magical Girls around her to summon for help, Madoka prepared for the long hull with Mami.

She was even thinking of asking the Magical Boys that Kyubey had created this timeline for help, but that was a can of worms she didn’t want to open just yet, thank you very much.

**Sayaka’s PoV**

“Okay,” Sayaka laughed, pulling away from the fake throne that Kyoko had pushed her into, as the girl left a trail of butterfly kisses going up her neck. “Not that I, you know, don’t appreciate all of this, Kyoko, but what gives? There has to be something going on here. Mami-san just left in a hurry, and Yuma’s trying to win Kyosuke and Hitomi over to her case, so-”

“Because I missed you, you idiot!” Kyoko exclaimed, as she pulled a taiyaki out of her pocket and threw it to land at Sayaka’s feet.

Sayaka raised an eyebrow at that display.

It hadn’t taken a genius to realize that Kyoko had just brought her to her own kingdom—that she’d made in an abandoned lot between two buildings, where she had used to store Soul Gems under this seat, apparently, but now just put her food.

But Sayaka couldn’t figure out what the point of this encounter was at all.

They certainly had bigger fish to fry now… and though Kyoko very much seemed like she was trying to seduce her, Sayaka knew that Kyoko really had no plans to try anything with her out in the open like this. So what gave?

“I’m surprised at you,” Sayaka continued on, as she finally just decided to take a seat on the dais that Kyoko had tried to push her against before—partly because she still remembered when Kyoko had threatened to kill her that one time. And so lounging in this place—that Kyoko had created to celebrate her own greatness—seemed a good way to get back at her for it some.

“Usually, you would be keeping me away from this chair with all your might, and telling me that _I_  should be worshiping  _you_ —for being such a terrible rookie who desperately needed your help to survive.”

Kyoko laughed. And it was the kind of sound that would bubble from someone’s lips, in them feeling true mirth—despite themselves—and Sayaka was shocked.

She couldn’t remember Kyoko ever really sounding like that before. Not even with her.

Maybe when she’d laughed some, and had told Homura that she’d been right about wanting to protect the one thing that mattered most—while Sayaka herself had been a Witch about to be destroyed; it wasn’t exactly a happy memory—but…

“Because I have a lot to make up to you, dummy, and—like I just said—I missed you,” Kyoko relented, as she came to take a seat on the right arm rest beside Sayaka and looked out into the distance.

“Remember that time when us five went swimming, in that rare loop where we actually all got along… Before we ended up getting killed, anyway? You were afraid of some of the fish swimming around us. And I, like a jerk, kept throwing them your way…

“To be honest, I don’t think it was too big a deal—and we were mostly just messin’ around with each other—but here’s me making up for that: throwing fish at your feet that you actually like, and ain’t afraid of.”

Sayaka felt the urge to poke fun at Kyoko for wasting food, but she held it back.

She also had the desire to remind Kyoko that she really only liked taiyaki with ice cream, but for once she thought better of it.

For the most part, she did like this treat: Kyoko was right about that, and it was even sweet that she remembered any of that at all.

And perhaps if Kyoko had recalled that she actually liked gelato with the stuff—and recalled every little detail about their one memory—then the relationship would be too boring and perfect, then.

“Thank you, Kyoko. I appreciate it… I’m not going to show you my chest like you’ve been wanting me to—because frankly I still remember the time where I accidentally punched your boob, and you were pissed for it. And I’m still pissed at you for  _that_ , but I…”

“Just hug me, Sayaka. That’s all I want… Please?”

“I- what?”

And though Sayaka did question it at first, she ended up doing exactly that.

The way Kyoko was talking now… It had taken Sayaka a moment to grasp it, but it sounded like goodbye talk.

And Sayaka wanted to protest—and to tell Kyoko not to even think about sacrificing herself, if that was what she was going for—but then she saw that more of Homura’s ice shards were beginning to eat up the sky, and realized that…

In one way or another, their whole lives might again be over before they even knew it.

And so Sayaka held onto Kyoko tightly, waiting for the dawn to come and being glad for the kind of person that Kyoko had ended up becoming.

…And relishing in that she could now give her the kind of comfort to her girlfriend, that Kyoko’s own father should have given her—when he’d first come across his amazing Magical Girl daughter… instead of doing what he had done.

  **Homura’s PoV**

Homura was at a pet adoption agency, and petting every cat that she came by and thinking of Amy.

…She really didn’t know why she was here, or what made her do this.

She may have once been an animal person, but that had been a long time ago.

When she’d taken up fighting for Madoka, Homura had known that there was no way she could have a cat and still manage to do all that she needed to do for that girl.

And so, she’d given up all fantasies about saving one (even Amy, a lot of the time), and resigned herself to having a one-track mind.

But now that Homura knew she was going to sacrifice herself soon, she found that maybe she still had an affinity for the little creatures within her, after all.

She couldn’t think of any better way to spend her last hours, and that was a very good thing—for it hinted that she really had gotten over her obsession with Madoka, didn’t it?

Her favorite kitty that she came across was a calico—with brown and yellow-white weaving into a tie-dye pattern, that probably would have looked hideous to most people, but not to Homura.

She grinned, when she saw the kitten eagerly looking at her with green eyes.

The man who was working there came up to ask Homura if she was looking to save “Flash”—and he seemed so kind and sincere, that it made Homura’s heart stop a beat, as she thought about Nakazawa.

Coming to the conclusion that she (sadly) couldn’t and wouldn’t take Flash with her—lest she also condemn her to a horrible fate, she knew that there was at least a little something that she could do.

Winking at the employee—Tidus, it looked like—Homura assured him that she was here to make the neko-chan’s life better, if only for a moment, via a magic trick.

And so the Magical Girl used her magic to turn the cat’s cage into one that looked and felt like vines and grass, with some light pouring into it and some toy balls for the dear to play with.

Tidus was clearly surprised by what Homura had done and excited about it.

He even ended up asking her if she’d like to work with him, to take care of the mammals, but Homura turned him down.

She then reluctantly—so very reluctantly; how her feet felt like lead!—walked back out the door and prepared to meet her fate.

Homura knew that as soon as she stepped over the threshold, that what she’d done would disappear—when she was no longer here to sustain it; and the fact that her Akuma Homura powers were waning didn’t help things—but at least she’d served to make her new friend’s life happier for just a moment.

That was something, at least.

Heading through the door, she sent Flash and Tidus one last glance before she was gone.

And unbidden in her mind, came memories of these words:  _Do_ _you like neko-chans, Homura-chan?_

These were some of the first words that she’d heard from Madoka, and they had started their bond—when they had both realized that they had this in common.

Idly, Homura wondered if memories of that would be playing for her in her Lair forever.

…

She had as many blankets and warm things that she could think of—while she prepared to step back into Eternal Repeat, that she knew was going to make her suffer.

Putting them all inside of her buckler, Homura almost felt like her more confident, badass self again—and could even almost imagine that she’d be able to handle all of this easily and grin and bear it.

She smiled arrogantly, but the look started to fall from her face completely when she reached out and touched the fire raining from the sky.

With her fingers stretched out, these “doorknobs” almost ended up electrocuting her, when they noted that she was returning back to what was left of her perfect world without Madoka.

**You may be me, but what joy do I have inviting you back unto myself, when you’ve grown weak and let our prize go?**

Homura snarled, and saw what looked to be her colors bleeding out of her, as everything seemed to turn into various shades of green around her.

Right… that had been a major color in her Akuma Homura getup, hadn’t it? And Homulily remembered that even now.

Homura let out the lightning that had found its way into her mouth. And she screamed, as she tried to not think on the pain or imagine how she may have just lost all of her teeth with this.

 _Because you were a selfish, shortsighted fool—set on obsession and hurting yourself!_ Homura argued.

She pushed back on the power that meant to sting her with her own violet blasts, that seemed to cause only more static electricity.

Everything seemed charged, and almost floating around Homura now; and when her hair fell back down, she put the last of her thoughts and abilities into her desires and found her way in.

Eyes glowing magenta, Homura thought one last thing.  _I’ve found a way to master the Akuma Homura parts of me now, and so I will with you, Homulily! Even if it’s by giving you new knowledge to chew on, that I’m now in love with Sakura Kyoko!_

Homulily was finally silent, as Homura began spiraling into her fate—the icy shards already beginning to make her become undone—and she would have liked to believe it was because she’d defeated Homulily, but she wasn’t so sure.

The Witch part of her was cruelly planning something, wasn’t it?

…

The instance that Homura finally made it into her once perfect world, it was only to nearly throw up.

She pinched herself, to try and remember what was real and to hold onto the bit of sanity she had left…

But right in front of her, was an image of Madoka’s body that Homura herself had had to shoot.

This Madoka was even still somehow holding hands with the fake Homura, even though that made absolutely no sense—for Homura remembered clearly, and always would, that she’d had to stand up and let go of Madoka in order to kill her.

But the worst part of it all, was that there were what—at first glance—appeared to be streamers connecting all of the skyscrapers together…

But upon careful inspection, were actually Madoka’s intestines connecting them all together, as they dripped blood onto where she’d already bled to lose the damned things in this fantasy.

In her mind, Homura’s witch form screeched at her and blamed her for her failures; and told her to go and get Madoka now, and to bring her here to save her once and for all.

But Homura fought against it with every fiber of her being, and instead began running to her version of the evacuation center.

Maybe she’d be safe there…

But more than that, Homura knew that if she was supposed to survive this frigid air—that was already biting into her skin and making her bleed with its strength—long enough to find how to shut Homulily down, then she would need to think and plan.

She would need shelter.

Homura tried to get there as fast as she could, though she could no longer fly.

And even her amazing jumping ability wasn’t working as well as it usually did—for, sometimes now, she would bang her legs into a building as she leapt, fall back to the ground, and have to start all over again—but eventually she did make it to where she needed to be, and crashed through the glass ceiling to land where all the multi-colored sleeping bags still were at.

Breathing heavily, Homura allowed herself to sigh in relief, when she saw a space heater nearby that she meant to save herself with.

But then Madoka was suddenly in front of her—a hole where Homura had short her, missing body parts, blood blood blood, and black eyes leaking, as she reached a far too real hand out towards her—and began blaming her for her death.

“It’s not real,” Homura reminded herself—as she fell to the floor and blocked her ears with her hands, and tried not to cry. “It’s not real, and I’m the one doing this. So just-”

But this new conviction of hers just caused a more accurate portrayal to happen:

Madokami was now before the violet Magi again (as she had been when she’d learned the truth about the betrayal, and had ascended again in the last world)—and her eyes were positively blazing, as she summoned her weapon to her hand with a swish of her hair.

“You are so completely arrogant, Homura! I don’t get how you- I am NOT the same girl you knew before- before I became the Law of Cycles! And I am better for that. And for you- and for you to rip that part away from me, against my will—and to try and force me back to who I was, when you don’t even know me well enough to have done that accurately to begin with—you should lose any grace I could possibly show you, Homura. I tell you what!”

In the end, telling herself over and over again that it was just a nightmare didn’t work.

Homura could have wept for days, months, or years at this point… she really didn’t know.

And all she did know was that she was unconsciously trying to gauge her eyes out—to kill herself and end her pain that way, the safety of the world be damned—until she noticed a certain pair of shoes coming her way as she was hunched over.

And even that she didn’t believe for a second.

“Oh, man. You never learn, do you, Piglet? We told ja not to go it alone last time, but you did and ruined everything for everyone in doing so. And now ya just had to do it again, and become even _worse_ off and not able to do your duty at all, huh? Well, I guess it’s a damn good thing that I’m here, ain’t it?”

“…Sakura Kyoko.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I am SO VERY SORRY that it took me so long to update, guys!
> 
> That writing contest that I mentioned last time, as well as NaNoWriMo, pretty much killed me. And so I didn’t have the time or energy to post this until now, even though I had the entire chapter done and just needed to simply edit and post it.
> 
> Yeah…
> 
> But I hope that this is a sufficient enough update, and that you guys can enjoy it.
> 
> And thankfully, I don’t think the next chapter will take anywhere near as long to post!
> 
> And sorry if some of the stuff with Madoka flashbacks feel kind of weird… But I’m trying to show that she’s not exactly the same, and has a whole other side to/world living inside of her, since becoming the Law of Cycles (and that she for sure has a bond with every Magical Girl in existence, that we didn’t even see in the series).
> 
> …I know that “The Hunger Games” reference (and my making it so “out there” hair colors became more respected, in my attempt to try and explain the characters’ stylish locks in a more realistic way) was also pretty weird, but I’m trying to show how some timelines in this series were just bizarre—like Kyosuke’s playing the guitar turning into him playing the violin, so there you go.
> 
> And I apologize for how gory and horrific some of the stuff got at the end. Hopefully it won’t stay that way, but Homulily really seems to be trying to torture Homura. Meh.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading! And I can’t thank you guys enough for your support! You’re truly the best:D


	7. Kiss it all Better

 

…

**Homura’s PoV**

Homura didn't know what she was doing—or why—or just how long she'd been doing it...  
  
When her mind somewhat caught up with her actions, she thought she was using her bare hands to try and shape ice into chicken nugget look-a-likes.  
  
But she shouldn't have been doing this…  
  
Not when she was freezing to death—and therefore should've been trying to stay away from the icicles, to make herself warmer that way.  
  
But Akemi Homura had lost her mind long ago, and now she couldn't even remember anything:  
  
Like why a pterodactyl had come out of nowhere, and torn away the few clothes and hot things she'd brought into this place—to make it somewhat bearable—that she sadly no longer had the luxury of.  
  
Beside Homura—no, above her. Homura had fallen over now—was a girl clad in red, who kept pinching Homura’s cheeks, and chewing her out.  
  
Homura thought her name might've been "Madoka", but she was too tired to really be sure.  
  
…

**Kyoko’s PoV**

"I swear if yer time magic brought dinosaurs back—‘cause your Labyrinth is showing the time 'fore they all froze to death—I swear to God, Piglet.  
  
"And hey, Homura? You maybe wanna stop touching the ice, and rubbing yer face against it—when you're already black and blue? Of all the stupid things… We don't have _time_ for this right now. And _I_ don't even have food to snack on, so I won’t let chu pretend that you do."

As it happened, Homura didn't seem to be focused on Kyoko's words, or helping herself out of this situation at all.  
  
Instead, she was actually moving under the ice--in her insanity--and seeming to be trying to bury herself that way.  
  
Settling herself in for the long haul, Kyoko ripped part of Homura's Magical Girl sleeve off and tried to use it for warmth herself...   
  
For she was also already starting to chill, and if Homura was just going to hurry her own death along, then maybe it _should_ have been every man for himself… At least for now.

There was absolutely no getting out of this, after all.  
  
None at all.  
  
...

 **Homura’s PoV**  
  
_In the memory that she was currently reliving, Akuma Homura was walking beside a rock star version of Madoka—_ _that she had recently forcibly created, since she wanted Madoka to be happy._  
  
_And in some ways it was a good thing—because Homura had been able to reset Madoka from being a ballerina, after she'd injured her foot and been bleed bleed bleeding, to give her another dream to live—but...  
  
Homura could tell that Madoka didn't at all like the way she was eyeing her bosom right now, as they tread forward together—and here Homura had thought she couldn't get any more creepy or awful in Madoka’s eyes.  
  
But in her defense (was there such a thing as "in her defense" anymore? One of the Clara Dolls demanded now), she wasn't looking at Madoka's chest because she wanted her... but rather for the reason that some idiot had decided to fire a blank at Madoka while she'd been performing, and now she was bleeding for it!  
  
"Lay down on the pavement, and let me get a look at your injury, Madoka," Homura said, as the pinkette seemed to fall closer and closer—to the gravel __behind one of the red brick buildings—this night, anyway_ _._ _  
  
Madoka seemed reluctant to listen to her, Homura could see—as the singer pushed her sunglasses back into place, and stared her mysterious companion down—and while a part of Homura wished that Madoka would relish this perfect world she'd made for her—she could honestly understand why she was behaving this way.  
  
On one hand, there was the "I split you in half against your will" issue... Not that Madoka remembered that at all—Homura assured herself, as she began pushing the other girl back.  
  
But more than that... in this reality, the two of them had just met for the first time:  
  
Well, Madoka and the fake _ identity _Homura was under now, that was—as the moment between them in the school hallway that first day had very much happened..._

 _But Homura hadn't interacted with Madoka since then. Not as Akemi Homura, and not even as the roadie "Fur": that she was pretending to be now._ _  
  
Madoka was vertical on the tar in front of Homura again_ (‘Don’t let me turn into a Witch!’)— _though her eyes kept twitching nervously, as if she was getting some sort of checkup. And Homura supposed she was—and the violet Magi examined her abdomen for where the bullet had hit._ _  
  
"Hmm. You seem to be more bruised than anything. I think I just saw the red bruise on you, and assumed your life force was leaking out profusely—so it’s that's good that that's not the case. But do you want me to find you some medication to put on your wound, Madoka? Or-"  
  
Madoka was sitting up with her shirt pulled back down, before Homura had even finished the sentence.  
  
This was probably a fantastic reaction, because people with glow sticks were running towards their "mediocre star" Madoka now—and Homura didn't want her to seem vulnerable around them, on the off-chance one of the bastards tried to shoot her again... or worse.  
  
"You know...Fur-chan? You remind me of someone I met once. Someone who actually talked every bit as formally as you do.... But she talked nonsense, and it frightened me, even though I got the strange sense she was trying to help me. _

_“Maybe- maybe you're not so much like her._

_“But maybe I can make amends with that ‘Homura-chan’—in my own mind—if we end up getting on well, Fur-chan!"_ _  
_  
_But Homura was already running away. And she didn't even have the excuse that it was because of Madoka's fans coming her way that she panicked._

 _She was just that much of a coward._  
  
_Darting behind the school building—like she once had when she'd seen someone drunk for the first time—Homura tried to calm her breathing, and to figure out how she still had so much social-anxiety, when she was now the goddess of this universe and could control everything about it at will.  
  
What Madoka had just been saying was everything Homura could've ever _ hoped _for—that there was still hope for them despite what she had done to Madoka._  
  
_...And yet it was too much; and she didn't want to get her "faith up", so instead Homura made herself throw up—as if that would somehow make her out of control emotions go away.  
  
It didn't._  
  
...

 **Kyoko’s PoV**  
  
"Piglet... I don't know what to do with you, bitch," Kyoko sighed—feeling like she was beginning to try and come undone herself, but trying to fight against it.  
  
Oh, what a wonderful person Homura was—for always doing these kinds of things to her!  
  
"One minute I think you’re actually gonna get up and do somethin'’—and fight fate—and the next you're curled up in a ball on your knees, as if you’re thinkin' the ice around jou’s a hamster ball ya need to get into.

“And what? Now you’re tryin' to push me back-first onto the ground—so I give up and die, too?—well it ain't happening, Piglet... Even if there's a part of me that wishes it would."  
  
And Kyoko resisted the urge to cry—like a pussy would've—in remembering how she kept her father from killing her, by laying on the ground and refusing to get up (and he couldn’t lift her new, hard body himself); and so she hadn’t joined her family’s fiery remains.

...

 **Homura’s PoV**  
  
_After Madoka came much too close to putting two-and two-and-two together, and realizing that she was “Fur-chan”, Homura decided to try and keep her distance from her ingénue._

 _Really, she had been avoiding Madoka since rewriting Earth, but Homura decided she was going to double-down on the effort now.  
  
She still watched on, though, as Madoka became a bit more famous—while still very much being a normal schoolgirl—with some song called, "_ _It's Time To Get Real," which seemed odd to Homura. But she let it go._ _  
  
__She was willing to let everything go about Madoka—and people’s thoughts about Madoka (that usually would've had her in a murderous rage over her)—until she heard something, about how someone was going to try and use a knife to give Madoka scars on her mouth much like the Jokers’ own._  
  
_Homura came back to the planet for the first time in a long time then: outside of a place called "BAM", in which the name alone had Homura worrying what they'd do to Madoka._

_And sure enough, the first thing Homura saw upon entering it was horror upon horror…_

_"Get away from that girl," Homura hissed—her hand billowing beneath a red sleeve, as she reached out and latched onto the woman who had Madoka sitting in a dental chair. "I don't care if she is a celebrity, and you think you have some moronic claim on her for it. I'll-"_

_"F-F-Fur-chan, wait!" Madoka demanded, just as Homura nearly snapped the African girl’s wrist. "She's not- she's not trying to hurt me! She's a face painter, who- who wants to paint my face to look like the Joker—for the Suicide Squad reboot that's coming out tomorrow, that we're all excited for. What-"_  
  
_The frizzy-haired woman still in Homura's grasp must have realized what was going on then, because she tried to get away from the livid amethyst Magical Girl—and to kick at her some—but it did her no good.  
  
And somewhere in Homura's damaged mind, she wondered just why it _ wasn't _doing the apparent face painter any good._

 _Why wasn't she- why wasn't she just letting her_ go _?_  
  
_And in suddenly hearing her own voice—but from a distance, as if she was encountering it from underwater—were these words: "Am I really supposed to believe that, Madoka?! This place is called 'BAM'! And why would it have such a name, unless it had to do with gunshots?_

 _“And- and even if you're right—and she does only want to draw on your face—she still needs an outline to do it. And that will press into your skin, and end up damaging it, and I won't allow it!"_  
  
I don't have to kill her _, Homura thought—rationality returning to her mind, ever so slightly._ _And she transformed in front of Madoka and pulled her buckler out._ As the deity of this universe, perhaps I can use my power to go back in time and stop this nuisance of a person from ever being born, and protect Madoka from ever being in this situation _that_ way.  
  
_Madoka bellowed the instance she saw Homura's shield appear on the scene—and it was like a million daggers stabbed into Homura's heart in response, as time seemed to slow down.  
  
And grabbing onto a white shirt from a mannequin right beside her—apparently this BAM place was also trying to sell clothes? Homura guessed—Madoka threw it into Homura's face and completely disoriented her former best friend that way, and purposefully tripped her with her foot.  
  
Then Homura felt Madoka pulling the captive out of harm’s way, as she yelled out to her, "Maui, run!"  
  
And since Homura's ears were then met with the sound of heels clicking on the ground, she assumed this Maui person must have done just that._  
  
_Finally, Homura ripped the blouse off of her face and stared Madoka down...  
  
And the look that the rose-haired girl was giving Homura wasn't the one she’d so wanted to see:  
  
Madoka had never looked more infuriated in her life; and Homura was reminded of one time that Madoka had glared at her when they'd stood facing each other, with the wind picking up their hair—ready to take on Walpurgisnacht—but arguing about the best way to do it.  
  
Homura couldn't be entirely sure, but she thought she might have seen the gears turning in Madoka—no, Madokami’s head—to try and figure out what had happened, and Homura couldn't have that._  
  
_Lying was the best option, then—unless she wanted to go back in time to stop this from ever happening (like she'd gotten so used to doing at this point), but Homura was afraid of what just might happen if she tried it…  
  
"Apologies, Madoka," Homura said, bowing to her estranged best friend as she spoke. "I didn't- I didn't mean to scare you, or your new friend at all. Our middle school is putting on 'Alice of Human Sacrifice', you see. And to audition, I need to practice psychological horror acting, or else I'll never get the part."  
  
Madoka looked at Homura for a long time after that—seeming to be searching for something, as her usurper discreetly used her magic to keep Maui from calling the police._

 _And finally, Madoka settled on: "I don't believe you at all, Fur-chan," before walking away, clearly disgusted._  
  
_Homura, was left debating, then, if it was really worth doing all that she was for Madoka (...if what she was doing was even_ for _her)_ — _if she was just going to end up treating her like bullies once might have—and if her life was always going to be like this: deceiving Madoka that she was in a play, and then messing that charade up._ _  
_  
_Feeling depression well up inside of her again, Homura felt like grabbing a gun and shooting herself in the head, like she had done in her own Labyrinth—though she wouldn't be feigning anything this time—but she did not._  
  
_..._

**Kyoko’s PoV**

"Fuck you, Homura! Now yer standing up, in a trance, and tryin’ to get me to go somewhere with you?

“No! Knowing you, you'll try an’ get me ta reenact some of your memories! You'll want me to be your Madoka—to torture yourself even _more_ that way—and I ain't playin' that way."  
  
But did Homura hear Kyoko at all?  
  
Of course not.

And as much of a trooper Kyoko was, she found herself giving up the only hope she had left (in the form of dropping goldfish crackers onto Sayaka, and eating them off of her while doing certain… other things—to make up for tormenting Sayaka with real fish she hated that one time)—which wasn't like her at all.  
  
Maybe it would be best if she gave into Homura's whims, and play-acted with her: perhaps they could speed things along that way, and finally let Homura die here.  
  
And Homura _was_ going to die here, Kyoko fully understood now—because Kyoko could use as much magic as she had on her person, and she'd _still_ be unable to move Homura: That girl was anchored to her maze, and clearly not willing to leave.  
  
Rubbing her hands together, to try and keep warm, Kyoko said goodbye to Sayaka in her head over and over again... just in case.  
  
Until she saw some rays of light—very much like battering rams—break into the house, to try and destroy the both of them, once and for all.  
  
And while Kyoko wasn't even really opposed to letting them do their job anymore, she also knew that she was a pretty dark person and death by painful light was _not_ how she wanted to go

Especially when one such beam landed on her arm—and placed a red, fiery hole into it that way.   
  
And as Kyoko hissed—because this was close to what being shot by a gatling gun would feel like in her imagination—the Red Magi gritted her teeth, and tried to be the Good Samaritan one more time.  
  
Having had no luck trying to move Homura by her _body_ , she instead began trying to pull on the girl's insane amount of hair to get her up and at 'em.  
  
"Piglet, if you don't get your ass in gear now, you're going to be a sitting duck for these blasts, that just blew this roof off. For the love of all that’s hol-"  
  
But Kyoko was cut off by a bit of congealed blood falling down from above—almost resembling a shirt, to the somewhat crazed Kyoko—and landing on Homura's face, to protect her from the pinpoint laser that would have obliterated her otherwise.  
  
_..._

 **Homura’s PoV**  
  
_"You're... you're that strange girl 'Homura-chan', who was awful to me on the first day of school and then disappeared. Aren't you, Fur-chan?"_  
  
_Homura was sitting in her favorite meadow in this segment of her life—where she and Madoka had once sat in side-by-side in two kitchen table chairs._  
  
_...It had been one of the happiest days of Homura's life—for she had told Madoka that she really_ did _want to spend more time in nature_ , _but didn't want to sit down where bugs were._

 _Madoka had then suggested they make Homura's dream come true by compromising—and bringing some posture chairs, so that she wouldn't have to be sitting on insects._  
  
_And so they had._  
  
_But after Homura had made the multiverse—and realized that she'd lost Madoka forever by doing that, while also saving her—she had taken Madoka's chair away from the area (so as not to fool herself) and danced merrily at her success, with her stolen power in hand.  
  
...But then she hadn't been able to lie to herself any longer—and had literally tipped over the edge of the cliff, in order to try and commit suicide._  
  
_But it hadn't worked._

_Homura had been too strong, as an all-powerful being._

_And when she had healed herself, she had decided again that Madoka's happiness was worth her own suffering._ _  
  
And now? Homura had no idea why she was at this garden again: It only held bad memories, and it seemed like that was just going to get worse.  
  
Looking at Madoka tiredly, Homura decided to be honest with her best friend... as truthful as she could be, anyway, as she peeked one violet eye open.  
_  
_"And is there a law against weirding someone out, Madoka? I'll admit the first time we met... was a mistake: I was dealing with a bout of insanity then, but I'm better now._

 _As for the other times we've run into each other... I became your friend and was trying to help you. What's so wrong with that? And last time, I was acting—as I told you—so..."_ _  
  
Madoka's hands were clenched into fists as she looked at Homura now, but it was clear to anyone looking that she didn’t have her memories back._

 _And Madoka must not have thought there was much of a threat here, either, or else she would have come with Sayaka and her “punches”, Homura thought._ _  
  
_ _"Even though I still don't believe you were acting at all, Fur—err, Homura-chan—why lie to me by giving me a false name? Why not have let me know you were that 'Homura-chan' from the beginning, and have told me about your sanity issues?_

_I would have sympathized with you, Homura-chan!” Madoka said gleefully, clapping her hands together._

_And it was too much for Homura to bear, and so she shook to her core._ ‘If you were blessed with such an awesome name, you hafta make it your mission to be just as cool as it!’

 _“And though everything wouldn't have been perfect then... it at least would have been better.” Madoka gulped as she got the last words out; and there was an evil part of Homura that relished in that sound._  
  
Good _, that dark voice in Homura’s head said: in brief contrast to the sunlight that was falling on her, and resembling Tomoe Mami with its brightness._ Get back into the place I chose for you, when I wished to be strong enough to protect you—and therefore made you less active as a result.  
  
_There was even a division in Homura that wanted to transform into her Magical Girl self, and subtlety threaten Madoka into submission that way.  
  
But she didn't do this for two reasons: One, because she hated herself and loved Madoka too much for it.  
  
And two... Because she knew that Madoka was still far from finding out the truth, even if she _ had _seen her in her Puella Magi attire around Maui._ _  
  
"Why did you come out here to find me, Madoka?" Homura asked, as she finally fully turned to face her beloved—just as a gust of wind blew by to rustle all the orange and dying leaves in its path.  
  
Madoka's eyes widened at the question; and it was clear to Homura in that action, that Madoka hadn't thought she'd be asked such a thing.   
  
But after fidgeting with her skirt a little bit—and awkwardly looking down at her feet just once—Madoka ended up giving the most Madoka-like answer that Homura had ever heard from her. _

_And that was saying something._ _  
  
"Because sometimes I try to make things right with people I even have issues with, Homura-chan. And even you fall into that category," Madoka asserted.  
  
And so Homura resisted the urge to laugh bitterly, as she flipped some hair out of her face—she _ still _had that awful habit—because she knew that it was all well and good that Madoka was staying this stuff now... But her tune would change if and when she ever found out what had happened._ _  
  
"And what happens now, Madoka?" Homura asked the million-dollar question, as she thought her friend might have figuratively and literally been reaching out for her from across the way. But she was probably just seeing things._

 _"The last time I told you some truths, you just stood there as I awkwardly hugged you and cried, Madoka._ _  
  
"And after that, unable to help myself—as I'd had no idea what I was feeling anymore, or what I ever had—I kissed you. And you... Oddly enough responded to it for a minute, and kissed me back. Perhaps you subconsciously remembered our good memories in that moment, enough to not be scared of me...  
  
"But whatever the case, you did lip-lock with me—before awkwardly pulling away and saying you had to go... as you wiped the proof of our kiss away, but had a strange dreamy look on your face: The same one you wore when you came to comfort me, and told me you finally knew what to wish for.  
  
"So I ask you now, Madoka: If I'm honest with you, will you be numb... or will you feel emotion? _

_“And which alternative from you should I prefer? Because I don't know. I honestly don't know."_  
  
_”But I'm near saying ‘screw all of this’—screw everything, maybe—and clapping for you like you did me when I corrected Sensei's mistake..._

 _“Perhaps that—even with all its tragedy—is the happiest I have ever been... and not here, where I'm clapping for your star self_ now _.”_ _  
_  
_"…Is that a fanfiction that you're trying to write about us?" Madoka asked uncertainly—seeming to try and find a silver lining to everything that Homura was saying, and_ not _jump on the "Homura needs to be institutionalized” bandwagon._

… _Homura had thought that the conversation between her and Madoka would go on for a long time after such a ludicrous question from the pinkette—because maybe, in some ways, she was right: maybe she really_ was _sort of forcing Madoka into a fanfiction with her, forever and always—but she just ended up excusing herself awkwardly (much like she had the one time their lips had whispered against each other), and left the meadow._  
  
_After this, Homura had thought that a good amount of time would pass before Madoka sought her out for confrontation again:_

 _Homura knew there was no pretending that it_ wouldn't _happen—that just wasn't possible anymore—but she hadn't expected that it would happen so_ soon _._  
  
_It was the very next day—and Madoka was facing Homura with gold eyes, eyes blazing, as she recalled everything.  
  
"Why, Homura-chan?" Madoka begged—as the two of them stood on the bridge that led to Mitakihara middle school, and tried not to draw too much attention to themselves. "Why would you do this... Why would you _ do _this to me?_ _And don't tell me that it was to protect me and stop what Kyubey was doing: I know you, Homura-chan. I know you. And if you did this, you partly did it for yourself.”_ _  
_  
_Homura scoffed at these words—and refused to even look back at Madoka, as she resisted the urge to slap her. "I_ did _do it for you, Madoka! As I've done_ everything _for you_...

“ _Partly, anyway: I'll admit that my wish was always half-selfish and half-selfless. But what was I supposed to do, Madoka? You asked me to save you—many times, I might add—and in my Barrier you said you'd be unhappy as god._

 _“How was I supposed to react, when Kyubey said he'd find a way to kidnap you and undo everything you'd done? I did the only thing I could."_  
  
_Madoka grabbed onto the railing in front of her, and began pulling herself closer to it—before somewhat launching herself from it, and rinsing and repeating—before she said pretty levelheadedly:_

 _"You could have talked to Sayaka-chan, or Bebe—who I had trusted with my power, and knew more than you did. Or you could've waited and talked to_ me _._

 _“All you did in the end, Homura-chan, was create a too perfect planet_ — _and one that is, somehow, also too imperfect—that you're too tired to even hold_ up."  
_  
Homura entirely ignored the comment about how she should have listened to Miki Sayaka:_

 _She'd long stopped giving that girl any thought. So there’d been no point in talking to her at all, especially since Madoka was_ wrong _that she would have been able to discuss with her._  
  
_In the past repeats, Homura had ended up not being able to tell anyone anything—because she had firsthand seen what happened whenever she tried it.  
  
And in her own maze, Homura had had no idea when or where she even _ was _._    
  
_And eventually she had found it out—partly through Miki Sayaka, it was true—but even then Homura hadn't known if what she’d said was true or not:_

 _She'd been losing her mind at that time—still was—and she hadn't known what was real and what wasn't._  
  
_And I couldn't ask you, Madoka, because the time I was finally seeing you again—with you actually_ having _your memories—you were about to take me away, and then it would've been too late._  
  
_"I don't know what you mean about this world being too perfect, and not perfect enough," Homura begged Madoka's pardon—but not really—just as one of the Clara Dolls chose that moment to try and throw a pie at Homura’s former Sleeping Beauty_ _love_ _, before one of its sisters prevented it from doing so._  
  
_Oh... Homura_ might _have gotten what Madoka was saying now._ _  
_  
_Throwing her arms up into the air at Homura’s comment, Ultimate Madoka iterated, "It's too perfect, Homura-chan, in that you don't let any tragedy exist here. And that's a natural part of life,_ _which_ _shapes it._

 _“And you must have realized that, because you then decided to do little pranks to emulate tragedies—in breaking Mami-san's teacup, or stealing Kyoko-chan's apple, but it's not enough. Not_ nearly _enough._  
  
_"And as for it being imperfect: just look around you! Look at your Clara Dolls—and the oddities of this place—that you have to keep changing people's memories of, so they don't notice it.  
  
"All of that is what I mean, Homura-chan—and why you should give it up. It's not too late. I know- I know you destroyed your Soul Gem. But I can find the pieces of it, put it back together, and take you back into the Law of Cycles with me!"_

 _Homura silenced Madoka with just one withering look, and hair flip, as her thoughts ran away with ideas about how she didn't want to go to "heaven" with Madoka, if she couldn't come back—or maybe touch the oblivion that was death—if she didn't like it there._  
  
_But more important than any of that was Madoka.  
  
The most important thing in the world to Homura was _ always _Madoka._  
  
_"You were happy in my world, Madoka," Homura insisted, as she thought that she saw Suzune out of the corner of her eye—and refrained from putting her hand on a dirty part of the bridge, that desperately needed to be cleaned.  
  
She _ swore _that if Kyubey had gotten free, and was trying to make a Contract with that Magical Girl hunter again, she’d-_  
  
_But that didn't matter right now, did it?_  
  
_Placing a hand to her twitching eye, to try and halt its ailment, Homura said the most vital thing she could:_

 _"You were happy here, though. Weren't you, Madoka? Don't deny it. But were you happy with your job of saving Magical Girls' souls?"_  
  
_Madoka didn't respond right away, and that was answer enough for Homura.  
  
And as she straightened one of her red ribbons, Homura could tell that she was seriously weighing what to say._

 _"I'll tell you the truth, Homura-chan," Madoka said at last, using the bit of magic that she was beginning to get back to create a shield to protect Suzune—as she must have sensed where Homura's thoughts had taken her._    
  
_Homura blinked in surprise._

 _And she was glad that it was only_ just _surprise, and that she kept her anger in._

 _Didn’t Madoka know that that girl needed to_ die?  
  
_"I'll tell you the truth in order to fix things, because me telling you something honestly in Homulily is what started this entire mess:_

 _"I was not one-hundred percent happy as a goddess, no. But before you get on your high horse, let me explain everything to you. The reason I was at all a little bit_ un _happy, is because I knew I'd never get to interact with Mama, Papa, or Tatsuya again._ _  
_  
_"I also knew my chances of seeing Hitomi-chan once more were also mostly gone; but really... I was glad for that, because I didn't want her to suffer as a Magical Girl. And if I had my way... None of my friends would have, but I also respected all of your decisions enough to let them_ be _your choices…_  
  
_"So those were the reasons I was a bit bitter... But I was also_ thrilled, _because being able to help the way I did was something I've always wanted, Homura-chan! You know that. And I'd never felt more fulfilled, or worth something._ _  
_  
_"Every time I got to add a Puella Magi to the long list of ones that I'd saved, I knew more and more that what I'd done was the right thing—because I came to love them, too, as I came to know them. And my human form got to stay in a paradise with them forever, while the part of me that is the Law of Cycles worked._  
  
_"And I won't deny that that last part was somewhat exhausting,” and as Madoka said this bit, she_ looked _exhausted, as her hands shook... Every bit as much as Homura herself was at the moment._

 _“But Homura-chan… no one's life is completely perfect, and that's a good thing. I don't think we'd be able to appreciate the things we have, otherwise. But it was perfect_ enough. _And most things in life are worth working for. So the positives of my wish really outweighed the negatives for me, so_ please _give it back to me and let me fix things."_  
  
_So close... Homura was so close to doing just that, as she clenched her fists and began to realize that, mayhap, she had made a colossal mistake._

 _But she couldn't... She couldn't let Madoka go for a few reasons._  
  
_Walking over to Madoka and running a hand through the light_ _ginger’s hair, so that Madoka could maybe understand how much she loved her—and that she was doing all of this for her—and wasn't just a cackling villain here, Homura gave the solution, that:_

 _"But you_ were _unhappy, Madoka. At least somewhat... Otherwise, you wouldn't be telling me all of that now. And you wouldn't have cried out for help in the meadow._

 _"If for no other reason, you must have been sad because you realize your talent in singing now, don't you? And you must have also realized it even before, because you were omniscient: A life as a performer was something you_ could _have had_ —should _have had_ — _but now it's lost to you forever._

 _“And even in your heaven for Magical Girls... There's no singing, is there?” And Homura was growing so bitter as she said this, she thought she might have been making her lips bleed and tasting the salt there. “Because that place is limited by what you yourself knew at the time—and you knew a lot, so an Elysium it_ is _—but you can't add any more to it, can you?"_ _  
_  
_Homura_ _thought that that was the case, anyway._    
  
_Miki Sayaka—when she'd been getting her memories of her time in the Law of Cycles back recently—had kept talking of her love for skiing..._

 _And Homura hadn't been able to figure that out, because she_ knew _that the sportsy Magical Girl preferred snowboarding to it. So if she had been in a snowy area, why wouldn't she have been doing that if she had the choice to?_  
  
... _It was because she_ didn't _have a choice. Wasn’t it? She was bound to only the things that Madoka had known how to do._

_"Oh, Homura-chan," Madoka cried now; and it was such that Homura wanted to go find a dagger somewhere and stab it through her own heart:_

_This was the Magical Girl who had actually unintentionally shot herself to get past Tomoe Mami’s incorporeal ribbons, after all, and had thrown tomatoes at herself and had tried to drown…_

_"We're not going to find a compromise here, are we?"_

_"...No, Madoka. But I won't fight you unless you attack me. I will protect my self in self-defense then—and maybe I will give into battling a bit then; who can really say—but I will use all of my power and strength to keep this sanctuary alive for everybody... And to keep you here, where you_ have _enjoyed yourself, so that you can learn new things."_

_Homura was back to wearing no expression again, and she absolute hated it. Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men…_

_"You're really not going to stop, are you?" Madoka asked now, as she used her abilities to teleport both Homura and herself back to that cursed flower field from Homulily—that was as cursed as it was blessed to Homura..._

_Madoka’s face was just dreadful as she said this: wide tears falling from her eyes, snot underneath her nose, and eyes bugged out._

_…If this was the tragedy in life that seemed necessary to Madoka, then Homura was having none of it._  
  
_When Homura said nothing in reply—and just spread her legs apart where she stood, so that she'd have a better chance of taking the hit from Madoka that was about to come—the woman who was now Ultimate Justice summoned her bow and arrow to hand, and got ready to fire it at the girl she may have once loved.  
  
And as Homura guessed she was probably about to die, it truly hurt that she’d never really know if Madoka had loved her or not._

_”Homura-chan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I think you had good intentions for me, maybe, but… If I just ignored this, other Magical Girls might smash each other’s Soul Gems. Homura-chan, I can’t believe you’re allowing some of them to die, without becoming part of the Law of Cycles, by destroying their Soul Gems and just leaving their souls hanging! It’s not right. And I’m sorry for this—I’m so sorry—but I’ll fight you to get things back the way they should be, if I have to!_

_"And also Homura-chan... If I just fight you now—and win, like I know I will—and then take you back to the Law of Cycles with me, where I know you'll finally be happy, as if everything's alright and you've done nothing wrong... I'll have girls constantly warring me on my hands—thinking that they can do as you did, and I'll only slap them on the wrist for it. And I can't have that, Homura-chan! I can't!_

_“So even though you're my favorite—even though you're my best friend, and doing this will hurt me more than anything else ever has!—know that I will fight you and_ end _you, if I have to, if you don't back down."_ _  
_  
_But there was_ no _backing down now, was there?_    
  
_Somewhere in her head, Homura had always known that:_

 _It was why she'd concluded that the two of them would end up as enemies, when they'd been in that school hallway a lifetime ago, and she'd put Madoka's ribbons back in her hair for her._  
  
_Shaking her head, and pulling out her buckler to make it easier for Madoka—as Homura now prepared to be somewhat combative, too, if she had to. Because she would_ not _be dragged back to the Law of Cycles like Madoka was saying, no matter what... she just prayed she didn't end up really injuring Madoka in this endeavor—Homura said the only thing she could in the situation:_

 _"I refuse to get rid of a world where you're happy, so you get one back where you aren't completely satisfied."_  
  
_And instead of protesting that she didn't know her enough to really even_ make _such a satisfying world for her, as Homura had thought Madoka would, she instead let loose one agonized scream and charged._  
  
_The next thing Homura would remember—or perhaps it was just the only thing she had allowed herself to—was Madoka and herself both falling, as they killed each other and the universe unraveled around them._  
  
_And then, waking up from a nightmare in her apartment—in the new place that Tomoe Mami had created—with the idea she had to go and save Madoka._

…

**Kyoko’s PoV**

"Holy fuck, Homura: You're forcing me to lay down beside jou, and are stroking my face now... Okay. I guess it’s better then you being completely gone to the world, but we'll be sitting ducks-"  
  
"But I want to touch your face, Kyoko..." Homura insisted; and it was very much the sound of a wounded animal that knew it was about to die, but wanted its last moments to be good ones, anyway.  
  
It still completely put Kyoko in a stupor, however:

She hadn't thought that Homura was conscious enough to even _speak_ anymore. So maybe this was progress.   
  
Now if only Kyoko could get the lavender Magical Girl to move away from the stalactites that wanted to fall down on them, that would really be somethin-  
  
Hey. What was this?! Homura was actually getting up now, and using her hourglass to try and deflect some of the pieces of ice that were coming Kyoko's way?

Breathing heavily—as one such jagged piece of Homura's soul came flying at her—Kyoko saw her companion shatter the shard on impact, just by reaching out with her arm and buckler to try and thwart the thing.  
  
(And it broke into _so_ many segments, that a tiny sliver even shot forward and cut Homura's face. Ugh. As if the woman needed even _more_ ways to be a horror movie monster.)  
  
But Homura’s shield itself took massive damage from having acted the way that it did.   
  
Which made sense, Kyoko supposed, seeing as how the ice cube was much bigger than that dinky thing was.  
  
...And yet she couldn't help the lump that appeared in her throat for Piglet's sake, when she thought about it all.

"I thought that time device didn' work for ya anymore, Piglet. So wha'chu doin' using it, and ruining somethin' that means a lot to you and Muggle by getting it out like that?"  
  
Homura didn't answer the query, and instead grabbed onto Kyoko's hand and began running with her out the door:

This was a _terrible_ idea to Kyoko—because all there was was a big mound of snow right in front of them—from some sort of blizzard?—so she had _no_ idea how Piglet planned on getting them through it, when this entire area was hell-bent on destroying them for trying anything too savvy.  
  
And even trying would probably a bad idea, because Kyoko’s extremities already burnt from the cold, and she knew changing the status quo of Homulily would only make worse.

Kyoko was even willing to bet that she was worse off than even Homura was, even though Homura had been face-first in the snow for who knew how long?

So why was she-

"I think the Labyr- no. I think _I’m_ waiting for the 'big finale' to finish us off—where I lay down on the pavement with Madoka, about to shoot her Soul Gem again.

“And I say that if we’re just going to be led there eventually, we might as well go ourselves now. It'll probably be the best place to find what's left of my Witch self, anyway, and to kill her."  
  
Before Kyoko could protest this, she saw Homura summon a massive ball of fire with her magic. She then held it up to the mound of snow, and it began melting right away.  
  
"You're using too much power, Homura! You're going to turn into a-"

But Kyoko stopped that train of thought, when she remembered that the Soul Gem Piglet was wearing on her hand now had only been put there for show by Mami.  
  
Homura really didn't have a Soul Gem at all anymore...   
  
And so Kyoko—as she regarded Homura with a slight glare that she couldn't help—found herself wondering how her acquaintance was even _alive_.

She should've been dead. Or taken away to the Law of Cycles, already. But that last one was impossible now, and had been for a while…

If Homura hadn't been some sort of Goddess when she destroyed her soul… she would've keeled over long ago, wouldn’t she have?

It wasn’t exactly a positive thought to have, Kyoko decided, as she punched the floor that had been claiming Homura earlier and ground her teeth for it.  
  
"If you are wondering how I am still alive," Homura said out of the blue, as if she'd been reading Kyoko's mind—as she had most of the snow out of the way now, so that they could walk through a tunnel where some still persisted—"it's because I merged my power with Madoka's when I stole her capabilities from her. Remember? So that must be the way that she—or Tomoe Mami, I don't really know who’s doing what anymore—must be keeping me here."  
  
Now Homura was heading out into the deep deep deep cold outdoors.

And Kyoko, as much as she didn't want to, found herself following—as she continued to hold onto Homura's hand, like she had when they'd been running from Sayaka's Curse many a time.  
  
In the back of her mind, as she passed through the icy tundra, Kyoko knew that she was really going past the point of no return this time.

Homura, too, for that matter.   
  
They had been in the freezer before, so Kyoko reckoned that their current location ought to have qualified as an Ice Age.  
  
Her limbs should have been completely breaking off; and Kyoko figured it was through her sheer force of will alone that she was keeping that from happening:  
  
She just pretended that she and Homura were going through the Maccalania Cloister of Trials in her favorite game “Final Fantasy X”, and that was all.  
  
As how Homura stayed all right—even when some of the snow ended up falling onto her head, as her own Familiars laughed at her—Kyoko could only begin to guess at.

But she figured it was because Homura was more of a ghost now than anything.   
  
Really, the fact that she could even exist at _all_ confounded the mind.

But Kyoko wasn't complaining: she liked Homura… for the most part.  
  
And maybe- maybe Homura represented some sort of alternative, on the off-chance Kyoko ended up hating the Law of Cycles and wanted to leave it.

Maybe.

"Homura..." Kyoko muttered now, sensing that she already knew what the answer to this was going to be—and so had wanted to avoid asking it for that reason—but deciding to voice it, anyway, because she thought she might have been remembering why she liked this particular Magical Girl so much, was this:

"Earlier, ya said ya wanted to touch my face. Why? Am I in all actuality your Replacement Goldfish for Muggle, since you two’s relationship’s gotten so abusive?  
  
"I mean, I assume earlier today you was lost in your memories of the girl you love—and _that's_ why you couldn't easily leave that house, or here in general—but then ya started reacting... somewhat violent in your sleep, and jou touched my face and went back to normal then.

“So I'm assumin’ you remember what happened in you two's stupid war, right? And decided that staying with Madoka might not be the best option for you?"

Kyoko really didn't even know how to finish the sentence or the thought, so she just clamped her mouth shut.  
  
But what she said had certainly gotten the wreck's attention:

For completely stopping in her mission of moving them forward, Homura turned to Kyoko and answered:

"I wanted to touch your face, because of the one time your head got injured—and I tried to help you—but in the end, despite what I'd believed about miracles and magic... you ended up dying on my watch."  
  
_..._

 **Homura’s PoV**  
  
_"Kyubey, please!"_ _Homura sobbed, as she looked over the bloody nails on Sakura-san’s fingers, that she was using to jam into her face again and again and_ again _. "Make it stop! Make_ her _stop!"_ _  
_  
"Unfortunately, I can't, Akemi Homura. Someone wished for Kyoko to do this to herself. And if someone makes a Wish, I can't refuse it… But if you girls want to find other means of protecting Sakura Kyoko—like having someone else make a Wish—I would recommend those." _  
_

_"...I see."_  
  
_…It really was a nightmare that the five Puella Magic were currently in._    
  
_In this timeline, they had finally won Sakura Kyoko ever—and had gotten her over to their side, so she'd stop bullying them all and help out with Walpurgisnacht (and Homura found that she'd come to rather like Sakura-san, once she'd gotten to know her and see a better side of her)._  
  
_But one day—when the five of them had been hanging out, and trying to figure out what to do for when Walpurgisnacht came—Kaname-san had pointed out that Kyoko had white lines on her nails, and that she'd once seen on TV that it could sometimes mean that someone was being poisoned._  
  
_But Kaname-san hadn't meant it to mean that she thought that that was happening to Kyoko. Not at all._

_Homura’s idol had only been joking—as they'd all been planning to have a murder mystery party together, and Kaname-san had thought such a thought would be a good idea for it._

_And she'd, of course, known that sometimes people had white lines on their nails for no malicious reason at all._

_All of them had thought that then, even Sakura-san herself..._  
  
_But then Sakura Kyoko had somehow realized that her mother_ had _been poisoning her, when she'd still been around._  
  
_Sakura-san didn’t think it had been intentional, but just her mom not being able to focus on what she was doing when they'd been living in poverty… but it had still happened._  
  
_But someone... Someone out there must not have liked Sakura-san at all, Homura thought, and was currently trying to get back at her._

 _And they_ must _have even been spying, to learn all of this about her—for now it sounded like someone had wished for her to attack_ herself _with those accursed nails again and again and again._

 _Kaname-san was also crying now; and Homura could tell she greatly blamed herself for what was going on with Sakura-san—even though it wasn't her fault._  
  
_"Mami-san," Madoka begged—as she finally stopped kneeling on the black and white tiled floor of the train station, as she went to ask something that four out of the five girls gathered knew would have dire consequences. But she asked it, anyway. "Is there a way you could bind her hands indefinitely—so even when you're not around her, she won't... she won't-"_  
  
_But Tomoe Mami would have to constantly focus to do something like that, Homura knew—_ _her eyes squinting in pain, for the anwer_ _—and what Magical Girl could do that?_  
  
_Tuning Mami-san out, and the response that she gave Kaname-san, Homura tried to concentrate on what Sakura-san wanted_ now _—as she tried desperately to hold the stronger girl's hands back, and to stroke her injured face._  
  
_"Tch. I- I've been- been through.... worse. Don'chu girl scouts w-w-w-w-worry ‘bout me."_  
  
She puts on a brave face even now, _Homura found herself thinking, feeling her respect for Kyoko go up as much as it had, when Kyoko'd decided to eat no more apples—since apples had to do with religion, and it was her wish that had had to do with religion that had caused everything to go haywire in her life._ _  
_  
_And now, even through all of_ this, _Homura was finding_ another _reason to appreciate Sakura-san._ _  
_  
_Meanwhile… Miki-san was finding a reason to tear her friend down, as she all but ripped her own hair out in her frustration._

_Sayaka took a step towards Sakura-san, but just as fast took one back._

" _Ugh. What did you_ do _to someone to make them retaliate like this, Kyoko? This is your fault!_

 _“...But even so, can you take us to the girl who wished for this? I know she can't cancel her wish, but maybe if she wished for this... She got powers similar to it, like I got healing magic for you healing Kyosuke. So maybe she can undo it ever so slightly?"_  
  
_Kyubey was already shaking his head to this—as Kyoko went so white, that Homura thought she was close to even turning a baby blue now._  
  
_And here Homura had begun to think that she and her friends all had new bodies—and that as long as their Soul Gems were okay, then they would be much the same._

_But maybe that wasn't the case… Maybe they could still get enough strain on the body, that they'd then be too hurt to heal themselves with magic?_

_This line of consideration made Homura gulp—as she pushed her glasses back onto her face, from where they’d begun to slide off for her tears._

And despite herself, she began resenting that Tomoe Mami hadn’t told them anything about this stuff before they’d made their Contracts.

That won't work, either, _Kyubey said to a shaking Miki-san—just as two bees that had gotten into the train station swarmed around each other, and fought:_

 _They reminded Homura a bit of how Miki Sayaka and Sakura Kyoko had interacted on meeting…_  
  
I don't know if the Magical Girl would have that kind of power at all. And if I don't know it, she definitely doesn’t; and I wouldn't know how to teach her if she is capable of it. _  
_  
Besides... If she were to do it, and focused too much on one thing—like a Witch does in its magnum opus—it could attract a Familiar that broke off from a similar idea. And we don't want that!  
  
_Later, Homura would realize that that was the first clue that they'd all been given_ _by Kyubey that Magical Girls turned into Witches. But she decided not to try and decipher the confusing words then._

_Instead, Homura was concentrating on the fact that Kaname Madoka suddenly seemed to be laughing hysterically:_

_Not in an evil way—but it was a way that one might sound, if they had decided they were responsible for some sort of terrible crime of accidental making._  
  
_"It's- it's my fault what's happening to Kyoko-chan," Kaname-san admitted, with her voice only cracking a few times as she did so—and Homura was certain that there’d been a conscious effort on her part to keep it from happening at all, even if she_ was _surely falling apart at the seams._

_"Madoka?" Homura longed to choke out that name in such a way, but did not—for the idea that the perfect love of her life could be responsible for this nightmare was just ludicrous._

_But even in this earlier jump, Homura had been beginning to see just how much even the simplest wish to Kyubey could be misconstrued._

_…And that while she was acting to try and save Kaname-san for the girl’s goodness, a time would come that she would show her true colors—for_ no one _was perfect—to make all of her attempts in vain._ _  
  
"I swear I didn't mean anything bad by it!" Kaname-san exclaimed now—hand gestures all over the place, as she tried to make her point. _

_But Homura didn't have the energy for this now... She didn't have the energy for anything; and so her hold on Kyoko slackened._  
  
_"Secretly... I saw Kyoko-chan from afar before I even met_ you _, Homura-chan. And she was beautiful. And everything I could have asked for in a hero to look up to... Or so I thought at first, before I met Kyoko-chan again—after learning about the Magical Girl stuff—and she showed her true colors... but then Sayaka-chan got through to her!_  
_  
"But the thing I wished for from Kyubey, when I first saw Kyoko-chan, was for her nails and face to be just a_ bit _cleaner. Because she was already amazing looking to me, but that would have_ really _set her over the edge, I knew_...

 _“But how_ this _ended up happening instead, I don't know! It didn't happen when I first made my Wish... So maybe us learning that Kyoko-chan’s mom accidentally poisoned her had something to do with it getting triggered? Maybe I subconsciously did something with my magic, then, when I then began thinking of her nails in that way…"_  
  
Kaname-san how is that even possible?! _Homura wanted to bellow out at this news._ I just learned that it's impossible to subconsciously use our abilities. Otherwise, Tomoe-san could keep Sakura-san's hands tied up even while unconscious, to end this problem… So how did you manage something like you did at _all_?

" _Kaname-san, your Soul Gem!" Tomoe-san shouted—falling down onto her knees herself, as everyone took the moment to look at Kaname Madoka accessory to realize it_ was _turning black._

_What would happen when it turned black?! Homura despaired._

_It was just an item... So surely it wouldn't matter at all when it became that way, right? Kaname-san just wouldn't be able to use magic anymore… Right?_

_…But she wasn't using magic_ now _... So why was her Soul Gem even being spent?_

 _Unless she was subconsciously using some of it now, without realizing it?_  
  
It'll be fine, it'll be fine, it'll be fine, _Homura tried to convince herself—even though she didn’t believe it at all, in her mind._

_Why was she living in fear of what would happen when Kaname-san- Madoka's crystal turned black all the way? Homura demand of herself, her own eyes bugging out._

_And why did it seem she was trying to block figuring it out from her mind?_  
_  
Whatever the answer was… it looked like Sakura-san had figured it out._

 _Because ripping the gun out of Homura's hands—something Homura would always remember, because Sakura-san snagged the under part of her skirt, and it never ended up repairing the right way after that_ — _Sakura Kyoko smiled surprisingly warmly at all her friends, particularly to the now numb Miki Sayaka—before explaining: "I'd rather just rip the bandage off. Madoka’ll probably return to normal faster, if she doesn't continue seeing me suffer."_

 _And with shaking hands (for they were still warring against her), Kyoko pointed the MP40 at her own Soul Gem, pulled the trigger, and instantly became lifeless._  
  
_Kaname-san shrieked…_

_Tears began streaming down Tomoe-san’s face…_

_And Miki-san seemed like she was going to round on Homura and blame her for everything:_  
_  
In fact, she was even_ already _pointing her sword at Homura’s throat._

 _Kaname-san was still alive... And so Homura_ knew _that she should have_ not _been thinking about restarting the loop, just based on what had happened to Sakura-san._  
_  
And yet she found herself strongly tempted to do just that._

_And it wasn't even for her own life that Homura was near leaving for:_

_Though Miki-san_ was _cutting her cheek with her blade now. So the amethyst Magical Girl’s own safety was definitely on the line…_

 _But because she didn't want this to be the attempt that she one with._  
  
_Not when Sakura-san had had such a miserable fate. And not when all of Homura's friends maybe hated her now... And where Kaname-san was responsible for_ everything _going wrong._    
  
_And... And Homura was also certain that if she stayed here—as Miki-san’s blade got too close to her eye for comfort—she'd be faced to see something awful happen to Kaname-san. And more than anything, she didn't want that._  
  
_But she also didn’t want the feelings she may or may not have been getting for Sakura-san._

 _Trying to save Kaname-san was hard enough… Even if she_ had _always meant to save the others, too._ _  
_  
_So Homura turned the hourglass upside down once again, and pulled herself back to the beginning._  
  
_But this time as she did it, there was a part of her that tried to crawl back to the place she'd just left—Kaname-san might have somehow lived that time, if she had stayed. She might have lived! So what had she_ done, _in leaving that location?—but she knew it was too late._  
  
_When Homura woke up at the beginning of March again, she found herself repressing some of the recollections that detailed what she'd begun to suspect about the Magical Girls… it would be the only time she did that—because this attempt would be when she learned the truth point-blank, and would no longer be able to deny it—so when Miki-san ended up asking Homura if she had teamed up with Sakura-san..._  
  
_Homura was afraid._ So _afraid_ : _Because she didn't know if Sakura-san becoming good last time had been just a fluke or not—what if she was usually a monster and stayed a monster?—so she said "no", even though she was already beginning to see the redhead as one of her best friends._

_Especially after the sacrifice she had made..._

_(_ _Sakura Kyoko’s own sacrifice would be part of the reason that Homura would try to kill herself within Homulily eventually._ _)_

_But Homura had also been frightened of what Miki-san might do to her, if she thought that she and Sakura-san were in league._

_Would she have her sword bite into her face again? Would she turn all of Homura's friends against her, and force her to face the Witches and her destiny alone?_  

…  
  
In the present, Homura found it absolutely _hilarious_ that she'd once been concerned about that sort of thing at all... When in the time after that jump, she would choose to do _everything_ alone... After Madoka purified her Soul Gem, so she could go back in time to try and fix everything.

"Because I'm remembering that time that Madoka unintentionally cursed you with her Wish. You must remember it, Sakura Kyoko. You have all your memories back now, right? ...It was one of the… worst moments of my life. And I link everything in that universe with the start of my going bad, it's true.   
  
"But it was really _that_ moment of it, that started my downhill spiral. And I regret everything about that instance greatly.... If only I could go back and change _it_."

**A little while later**

**Kyoko’s PoV**

Her skin being ripped off now caused so much pain! Too much pain! And it wasn't normal ripping, either.

It made Kyoko think of when the Witch Elly would pull at someone—and torture them through being drawn and quartered, while their worst remembrances were played in front of them.  
  
This wasn't that nightmarish _yet_. But the redhead could tell that the red bastards—as she would now call them—were trying to eventually remove her skin in exactly the same way, by almost seeming to be trying to make a four-way-cross-road via her skin, amongst themselves.  
  
And for the first time since Kyoko had entered what was left of Homulily… she thought that maybe she really _did_ want to die. More than anything, she would have liked to be near Sayaka, if she were to meet her end.  
  
And it—bafflingly to Kyoko—gave her uncontrollable bouts of anxiety and heavy breathing, as she tried to remember just why she _didn’t_ want to do that.  
  
But maybe being by Homura's side like this—even if it was just for Homura’s suicide and her own murder--wouldn’t be _such_ a bad thing.

It wasn’t like she really had a choice in the matter anymore. Or ever really did.

Kyoko willed herself to fall from the sky now—much like Sayaka's body had done in the past, or how even Kyoko herself had fallen against Hyades Daybreak—and as she did so, she found the maze completely changing around her. And it was as if it had been a hologram all along.  _  
_  
It might as well have been, for all she cared.

Seeing the place where Madoka had died multiple times, and Homura had grievously peered over her, Kyoko gave up entirely. 

Lying down beside Homura now… like Homura had been trying to get her to do before, Kyoko prayed that the skin birds would just leave her be—and let her freeze to death, already.  
  
If their intent really was just to destroy her, shouldn't they be _con_ tent... now that she wasn't fighting back, and had accepted her fate?   
  
Kyoko hoped so.  
  
But it was painfully clear that as Homura fell down beside her, she desperately needed her Madoka in this; and Kyoko supposed she could pretend to be her:

Out of the need to do one more selfless thing before she keeled over, and for another reason...  
  
So Kyoko crossed her hand over Homura's—as they both laid there, and the snow above them turned to gray rain—and said the words she'd subliminally heard in the manifestation of Homura's mind over and over again:  
  
"This is it. It's over for us, too," and she resisted the urge to run a hand over Homura's face some _herself_ —if for no other reason than to stop the nasty cuts on Homura’s cheeks from bleeding, and make her look less horrendous in her final moments.  
  
But she refrained.  
  
Kyoko knew that if this was going to be their denouement (like she so wanted it to be now), she needed to really be Madoka, and stick to her part: Homura's whole world revolved around her and always had, after all.  
  
And somehow... Kyoko just _knew_ that Muggle had probably only barely touched Piglet's face in their lives together. So Kyoko herself wouldn’t do it here.  
  
Muggle was just always out of Homura’s reach, wasn’t she? And so was everyone else.

...Except for one time.  
  
_..._  
  
_"Why do you want me to put your hair up?" Kyoko had snarled at Homura once, when the two of them had been in Homu's apartment—that the Puella Magi had thankfully made look normal, and_ not _like an eerie pendulum and slideshow for a change—and the brunette kept pressing her locks into Kyoko's hands, and asking her to do it._ _  
_  
_Despite how irritated she somewhat was with it all, though, Kyoko didn't mind_ that _much._

 _Homura_ had _just used her magic to give her a bed for once—and that was a nice change of pace—and she'd even bought her some blue cotton candy, that she was now chewing on._

 _So things really weren't so dreadful. She just didn't get what was going on in Mystery Girl's head._  
  
_'Don'chu know I always wore my hair down before I became a Magical Girl? And whenever I transform, my hair just goes up by itself?—I ain't complaining, ‘cause it suits me—but I have no clue how to do something like it with yours. 'specially since yours does a weird parting thing in the back. So why you even askin'?"_

 _"Because this is a memory that I have with Madoka... One time she invited me over to her house—when we had first become friends—and she did my hair like this... As she talked about becoming a Magical Girl to find information out about 'Kingdom Hearts III' for her Wish..._  
  
_"You can imagine how well that went over with me, Sakura Kyoko. But that's not important. What_ is _important, is that I want to be happy for just a moment... and recreate such a moment with you, if I have to. Just as I know you're using me as a scapegoat for Miki Sayaka."_  
  
_Kyoko frowned._

 _Well,_ she _was right to the point. Wasn’t she?_

 _And it was usually a trait that Kyoko admired in the other girl. But sometimes there could be a limit to brutal honesty._  
  
_Even so... As Kyoko stopped combing the brunette's hair for just a second (that was one thing she had known how to do)—and Kyoko thought Homura might have just purred—she thought that maybe there_ was _something to this "recreating" thing that Homura was talking about._  
  
_Kyoko reminisced about how one time she and Sayaka had gone to the beach, and Sayaka had bought a water toy that had looked like something for babies:_

 _It even had had some of that liquid within it, like some rattles Kyoko had seen in her life._ _  
  
She had made fun of Sayaka for it, but it had mostly been in good fun_...

_Or eventually it had been._

_Since Kyoko had become_ so _obsessed with the thing, and had played with it like the true kid she was._ _  
_  
_What Kyoko was going through with Homura now wasn't_ completely _different from that._

 _Homu had a tube of purple gel in here—that was much like an hour glass—so perhaps_ it _was close enough to the rattle and water from Kyoko’s memory…_

_She missed Sayaka... because she couldn't be with her anymore, as she'd gotten too hopped up on her own idea of what justice meant._

_"So... what, then?" Kyoko asked, giving up on doing anything with Homura's hair now._

_She'd just been making a mess of it. And Kyoko thought that if she didn't stop her attempt at working with it right this second, then Homura was just going to end up with it folded into a messy afro._  
  
_So now the both of them had just transitioned over to sitting on the sofa and chilling._  
  
_Homura didn't seem too happy about it, Kyoko could see—as she stamped down the urge to turn on the TV, and just completely tune her companion out. It was what she would’ve done with Sayaka—but Homura at least seemed_ _content enough: Like a cat, maybe._  
  
_"So... what?" Kyoko tried again, savoring the last bit of cotton candy that she had. "You wanna have sex?_ _The way ya talk, I don't think things ever went far with you and the pink girl. And it sure didn't for me an' Sayaya... But I sorta wanted it to._ _And I imagine you also wanted it with Mado._ _So are we gonna be each other's scapegoats in_ that _way, too?"_  
  
_Homura flinched. But Kyoko couldn't really make sense of it:_  
  
_Homu clearly wanted the girl... So why would she seem so opposed to the idea of being physical with her?  
  
Thankfully, Homura didn't act like a scared little girl—who might have curled up and withdrawn into herself, if she had been abused. _

_So Kyoko assumed that that had nothing to do with her reaction, but-_  
  
_"Yes, I suppose that is the natural ending, isn't it?_ _But I must say that I hate endings in general... after we now know what our fate is. And so I don't want to meet that natural ending with Madoka. Even if it could bring us both pleasure..._

 _“Not yet, anyway. Especially not when she's been kept as a child too much by Kyubey's schemes. And might always be. Kept too much as a child, but also killed as one. So Madoka deserves to be able to be one for a while, and to enjoy it, before eventually growing up and dealing with adult things."_  
  
_Kyoko tried not to show just how impressed by this she was._  
  
_And to somewhat play it off, she got up and went to Homura's mini-fridge to grab a coke can:_  
  
_The mini-fridge rested on a tile that was coming up, so that it was tipping over some:_  
  
_This made Kyoko… relieved, because as much as Homura came off as perfect—and Kyoko was beginning to think she was even moreso that than she knew—she still made mistakes and had flaws, huh?_

 _Such as in having crooked tile, and a tilting mini-fridge in this normal apartment room she'd just put in._  
  
_"So what do you want to do, then?" Kyoko asked hesitantly, not really sure she wanted to know: Because if Homura suggested they braid each other's hair, or anything like it, she was out._  
  
_Homura grinned then—and it was a sort of wicked one then, that Kyoko would eventually come to associate her with: And find it odd, that she no longer had it anymore in the illusion she would eventually cast._  
  
_"How about we go outside… and get out some of the frustration our idiot friends have caused in us, via breaking things?"_  
  
_So that's what the two of them ended up doing:_  
  
_They went to a walkway made of golden brick, near a park; and Homura stood upon a lamppost, while kicking said lamppost._

 _Kyoko, meanwhile, had opted to rip bits of a rim off of a basketball hoop._  
  
_...This was cool, but Kyoko didn't know if it was exactly what she'd been looking for:_  
  
_If she and Homura were truly going to try to replace their love interests with each other, there were better ways to emulate them._  
  
_Like, Sayaka liked to play baseball, Kyoko thought._  
  
_But she knew the rookie probably wasn't that good at it. And she probably did make all kinds of debris fall down because of misfires._  
  
_Honestly? When Homura had first told Kyoko of her idea to try and recreate times with Madoka and Sayaka—to make themselves less miserable that way—she had thought that Homura would want to do some sort of softball thing for her... since that was what Sayaka desired._  
  
_And then, in response to that, Kyoko could have then gone with Homura to put on a pink and white outfit, and to get a pink lemonade sucker to munch on—while she walked through a field of pink cotton candy: as this would make Homura happy, Kyoko knew._

 _It was in such a way, that Kyoko began to realize just how fucked up Homura and her thinking really were_. _But it was sort of a beautiful fucked up._

_And Kyoko hadn't really even thought such words to describe something, since she'd learned how awful religion—the thing that people believed was responsible for the beauty in the world—could be._

_"Tell me somethin’ about this girl of yours, that would warrant jou being so thoughtful and selfless ‘bout your wants for this human life of hers," Kyoko begged—her own mind breaking some, as she felt torn between wrecking_ more _things around them or not—as the moon shone down._  
  
_Homura was clearly taken aback by this—as Kyoko actually saw her eyes widen so largely, that she could actually see them beneath her bangs for a change: Something that usually never happened where Homura was involved._  
_  
And at first, Kyoko thought the Zen Puella Magi was just going to tell her to shut it, as she flipped her hair once, before departing._  
  
_But doing something that no one would have thought possible of Homura, she leaped down—seeming a bit drunk—and maybe she_ was _drunk, because she fell onto her stomach in a sort of belly flop that was completely uncharacteristic of her._

 _She then began laughing uncontrollably._    
  
_For once, however, it wasn't a bitter or hysterical giggle, Kyoko could tell... It was_ just _a giggle and only that._ _Nothing more, nothing less._

 _And then Kyoko ended up getting her story out of her target._  
  
_"You know how my hair parts in the back, when it shouldn't?_ _You must. I saw you noticing it before… Well, there's actually a reason for that;_ _and maybe I'll tell it to you someday. But most people have made fun of me for it._

 _"Madoka was the only one not to,_ _when I started pretty much being a vigilante as a Magical Girl... And even times when I fell like this, and people even moreso said what greasy hair I must have—when they saw my hair all exposed in such a way... Madoka would just massage my shoulder blades to comfort me, and put flower petals in my locks."_

 _Kyoko, unable to help herself, ran a hand through her own red mane at this news._    
  
_She tried to imagine what that must have been like for Homura, to be bullied so substantially and for such a dumb reason..._

 _Though she did imagine that the fact that Homura seemed a bit nerdy was also probably a contributing factor to why people had been so cruel to her. But still..._ _  
_  
_"Why_ do _you even have your hair like that?" Kyoko hissed, suddenly feeling a bit defensive. Because somehow Homura was now knocking down more of her walls down, that she wasn't sure she_ wanted _knocked down: not when Sayaka already had demolished so many._    
  
_Kyoko padded over to Homura, and thought about running a hand over Homura’s shoulder blades to make her feel better—and maybe if she did it, her hands might get tangled in Homura's hair and she could then try to figure the answer to her question out for herself that way—but she also thought about summoning her spear and stabbing her in the back, literally._  
  
_This was mostly because Kyoko was hanging over the precipice now... and according to one show she'd watched, when one’s brain didn’t know what to do, it then scrambled for an answer:_

 _And that was why people sometimes had fucked up thoughts like "If I pulled into this oncoming traffic now, I could kill us all", or about pushing a friend off a cliff, if they were both standing close to the edge._  
  
_And that was_ so _the reason that Kyoko was having the feelings she was about Homura now… and not at all because her own sanity was waning._

_...But if Kyoko was being truthful—and she promised herself she always would be, after her family fiasco—she knew she the tiniest bit wanted to kill Homura for a reason that had nothing to do with that, but rather that she felt frightened by the goody-two-shoes girl that Sayaka and Homura were now bringing out of her._

_Did Kyoko even_ want _that for herself? She wasn't sure._  
_  
"Because I wore my hair in braids for literal years—as I time traveled—and when I decided not to anymore... it remained parted the way I'd been doing it for so long, even then."_

 _Kyoko resisted the urge to react strongly to this—as she wouldn't give Homura the satisfaction of thinking she was more powerful than her, or more clever than she was—because she'd already talked to Kyubey about how Homura was an anomaly… and now just why that was made more sense than ever._  
  
_"So you've been time traveling to try and fix something?" Kyoko asked—a hand on her hip, as she looked at Homura in a new way._

_And sensing she already knew the answer to this question, Kyoko figured that all of Homura’s actions had to have had something to do with Madoka._

_And Kyoko didn't know much about Madoka, but she at least knew a few things:_  
  
_And one of those things was that Homura had laid down on a street with Madoka before—as they'd both been dying, apparently—and that it was one of her most cherished instances… and one of her worst ones._  
_  
So in deciding that Homura may have suffered enough for an eternity—and that she didn't need vindictive bitch!Kyoko coming after her just yet—the redhead decided to lay down beside Homura, take her hand in her own, and pretend to truly be Madoka._  
  
_"I assume you ain’t gonna succeed in your endeavors about her this time, are you? ‘cause Madoka's going to make a Contract to bring old Mami back to life in no time flat; and we all know how that's going to turn out."_  
  
_Homura's answer to that was only to squeeze Kyoko's hand tighter—as she tried to pretend that even through_ that _pain she was okay._  
  
_..._  
  
In the present, Homura and Kyoko were on the floor, much like they had back been then—even like Madoka and Homura had numerous times before—and as bits and pieces of _themselves_ ripped off to become the snow itself, it was all over.  
  
Wasn't it?


End file.
